


Alizarin Crimson

by TwiceALady



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dracula, Blood, Blood Drinking, Dubious Consent, F/M, Folklore, Gothic, Masturbation, Mild Language, Mind Control, Mind Games, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, Sexual Content, Sexually Suggestive Scenes, Suspense, Thriller, Vaginal Fingering, Vampires, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:00:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26581780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwiceALady/pseuds/TwiceALady
Summary: In a loose retelling of Dracula set in the world of Frozen, Anna and her companions are swept up in the machinations of a being with evil designs. Together, they must fight against an undead terror that would see them all dead, and for Anna, a creature that means to claim all she holds dear. Darkfic, Gothic Horror, Dracula AU.
Relationships: Anna/Hans (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 24





	1. Act 1 - Chapter 1: Anna

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gothic horror story and a loose retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula combined with my own thoughts and interpretations of the characters and story and how they fit or draw parallels within the Frozen world as a Dracula AU. Sparse dialogue/prose sprinkled throughout is taken directly from the novel, as I felt it best described the aspect of characters I wanted to keep for this fic. I see this as no different than using character quotes and lore from Frozen canon. 
> 
> It is very likely that your fav will die (I mean, come on, it’s a Dracula AU) but I do not write explicit descriptions of violence and gore, preferring to write primarily from an emotional angle which is a cornerstone of the gothic genre.
> 
> This is a fic written for entertainment and should be read as such. 
> 
> So, if you happen to want a story that’s a little off the beaten path, and are not too attached to your favs that a possible death would hamper your enjoyment, then please, pull up a chair and get cozy while I spin you a tale that I hope entertains and thrills.
> 
> Warnings: Language, Blood, Violence, Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Mind Control, Dub Con, Sexually Suggestive Scenes, Sexual Content, M/F Vaginal Fingering, Masturbation

The Innkeeper and his husband were hesitant to let her leave. Such a dear, sweet couple. They were concerned for her wellbeing as a lone traveller to begin with, but upon discovering her destination, they had become almost frenzied. Oaken, the innkeeper, nearly dropping to his knees and begging her multiple times to not travel to _‘such a place’_ , his husband shivering and crossing himself over at the slightest mention of the castle that resided high within the North Mountain.

To see such a great big bear of a man frightened over a mere place would have been comical to most, but Anna had always been the sympathetic sort. She found the villagers endearing and well meaning, and was certainly not going to try and dissuade them from their superstitions, for it was not her place to do so. Instead, she graciously accepted their blessings and curious ways with a good-natured smile. She was an outsider here, and would be a poor guest indeed to shirk their customs however strange she found them to her own.

Things were done differently in different places, and the far north had been no different. What seemed to her to be silly, old superstitions, still held great stock to the people who believed in them up here. All the villagers were peculiar like that Anna had found. The further north she had travelled from the lush metropolitan of Arendelle, the more outlandish the tales of fearful happenings and creatures struck her ears.

Kristoff would love it here.

She smiled. Yes, this was exactly the type of place Kristoff would want to see. The vast untouched wilderness surrounding the tiny village, the snow peaks and natural glacier sculptures, the old tales meant to be told on dark nights huddled around the hearth fire…maybe she and Kristoff could travel back here at their own leisure after they were married.

Kristoff was fascinated with lore and legends, the old ways. Many an evening they would walk the empty gallery together—Anna telling the history behind the paintings, the techniques, and Kristoff telling the stories of the myths and subjects depicted in the paint.

It was little wonder he was a favourite among the school children, and made such an excellent teacher. Kristoff had a way of imbuing his young charges with a thirst for knowledge. He could inspire the imagination and the mind with a few choice tales, and in return, it made his pupils sit up and listen when he taught lessons.

Warmth pooled pleasantly in her belly at the thought of her fiancé. It rivalled the heat of her hot mug of glogg and made her wistful. How she wished Kristoff had been able to travel with her, but this was not a pleasure trip she reminded herself sternly. This was business.

As the junior-most member of the Weselton Art Society, Anna had been thrilled when Mr. Weselton had approached her for her first field mission. He was sending her to the elusive Castle Jökul, high in the North Mountain range, the furthest she had ever travelled. It was all very exciting. A chance to make a name for herself and start her career in the world of art officially.

Mr. Weselton had been contacted by a representative of the reclusive noble that remained, about appraising and cataloguing the castle’s collection of portraits and art. The intention being to move into the modern age and sell the collection to galleries and museums around the world. It was an important job, and one that would put the Weselton Art Society on the map.

There had been no doubt that Weselton had wanted to go himself, but an untimely accident involving a ladder and an ostentatiously large portrait had left him incapacitated. His misfortune had been Anna’s good fortune, because he’d sent her in his stead.

Anna had always had a keen eye for art and a fondness for the history it held. She had spent her childhood sneaking into the Arendelle Gallery, and dodging admissions to see the works on display. Mr. Weselton had long since stopped shooing the freckle faced, vivacious little girl away, and after identifying an antiquated pigment process on sight, had instead taken her under his wing as his apprentice. She’d been apprenticing under him before she had come into season, her career underway well before a marriage. He’d become more a father figure to her than anything after her parents had passed away six years ago.

It was likely that most of the art from the castle would have fallen into ruin from neglect and age, and Mr. Weselton had commented how the estate must be in a _‘rather desperate position’_ to want to sell off the collection, but that the affairs of old noble families were hardly their concern. He seemed to pity the situation he’d interpreted from the letters alone, and remarked that it was a sad set of circumstances to sell off one’s history. A great boon for the gallery though.

Anna was hoping there would be a number of salvageable pieces in the castle, but her real excitement would be setting eyes upon what she could only imagine were fascinating works, rich with stories and history, and her getting the chance to catalogue it all. It was a big job, and one that would require her stay at the castle to be a lengthy one.

It meant she would have to be away from Kristoff for at least a few weeks. That had been the only downside, but luck being as it were, Kristoff had received, at the same time, a letter from one of his good childhood friends, Honeymaren. She had written to ask him if he would be able to act as a companion to her while her brother and grandmother were occupied elsewhere on business.

Honeymaren was a lovely young woman full of charm and good nature, yet to wed, and the object of desire to many a young suitor eyeing the family’s fortune and status. Kristoff, engaged, and being so close to the family that it was nearly his own, was the likeliest choice to keep the lady company and act as a chaperone when needed. He loved her as if she were his own sister, and took the duty of accompanying her quite seriously. If anyone could serve to help her vet her suitors, Kristoff was up to the task.

Kristoff had decided that it would be lovely to see his old friend again, and with her mother, Mrs. Nattura’s ill heart, Honeymaren would need the comfort of a close friend in the absence of her grandmother and brother. Anna would send her letters to Kristoff at the Nattura residence until she met him there in person when her work at the castle was complete.

She missed Kristoff dearly, and wrote him frequent letters describing all the sites she had seen abroad so far. Sometimes more than one in a day. She stifled a laugh; he was probably bombarded with her letters by now, and teased mercilessly by Honeymaren for it.

There had been no new letters for him recently though, and Anna hoped he wouldn’t worry over the sudden decline of correspondence. The weather taking an unpleasant turn when she had nearly reached her final destination.

The unexpected snowstorm had delayed her travel, keeping her in the small village, the last leg of her trip postponed. To this, both Oaken and his husband were visibly relieved. When she asked how long such storms usually lasted, she was met with vague answers, for who could predict the weather?

The sledge driver would not dare risk the mountain pass to the castle to begin with, agreeing to drop her off at the crossroads that divided the castle from his route in between the last two mountain villages. From the crossroads, Anna was to meet up with an escort from the castle to receive her and take her the rest of the way.

She looked up from the letter she had been writing to Kristoff when Oaken placed another bowl of steaming, hot stew beside her, the strong scent of garlic stinging her nostrils. The man _loved_ to cook with garlic.

“Eat,” he implored, though Anna had already supped for the night.

She smiled politely and picked up her spoon. Oaken and his husband were always feeding her extra, intent on making sure she was well fed for her journey, as if they thought her very life depended on extra sustenance. Like something would steal it away from her if she weren’t careful. Fortunately, she’d always had a big appetite and could afford to eat more than she would have back home, and would not offend her hosts by declining their hospitality.

“It looks like it’s beginning to clear,” Anna observed aloud, noting the falling snow slowing outside the window. “Do you think it’ll be well enough to travel tomorrow?”

Oaken shook his head softly. “It is never well to travel in that direction, young miss.” He crossed himself again—a frequent gesture that was beginning to make Anna feel uneasy. Too much time spent with the villagers, and she was starting to fall in with superstitions herself. It was hard not to when surrounded by it.

She could hear the howl of wolves then, their long keening song from the darkened woods sending an unexpected shiver down her spine. It had been days since she had heard them cry out at night, a sound that chilled her to the bone. An ominous and instinctual warning of danger that her body knew and understood on a cellular level.

But wolves out also meant the storm was letting up. _A good sign,_ she thought.

She’d be on her way to the castle soon.


	2. Act 1 - Chapter 2: Anna

_‘My dear, young friend, Anna,_

_As Countess, I bid you the warmest of welcomes to the North Mountain range. My home, Castle Jökul, located on the topmost peak of the North Mountain is eager to receive you and regrets such delay. At three post meridiem tomorrow, a place has been kept for you on the outgoing sledge. At the North Mountain crossroads, my sledge will await you and bring you to me. I trust that your journey from Arendelle has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful mountains._

_Your Friend, Elsa’_

***

It had been a few days since the snowstorm had passed. Anna had been in correspondence with the castle during this short period, and after rereading her most recent letter, she folded it neatly and placed it in her skirt purse. She was all set to resume her travel once more, though far later in the day than she had hoped.

Clearing the vast drifts of snow left behind by the storm had taken the village men some time, but the roads were ready for use once more—at least within the vicinity of the villages. Lengths of the mountain pass further along would be difficult if the snow had drifted badly enough, but if single riders could make it through with mail, then so could a sledge, in theory.

It seemed that the whole village had turned out to see her departure; grim, stony faces, crossing themselves over multiple times at the sight of her as she climbed into the waiting carriage of the covered sledge with three other passengers who were travelling to the next town over. She would be getting off before the next town, meeting the Countess’s driver at a fork in the mountain pass, an arrangement nobody seemed happy about.

It was Oaken who held her back; his large, meaty hand clamping down on her shoulder before she had fully entered the carriage of the sledge. She turned, puzzled, and he pressed a bit of jewelry into her palm.

“Please, young miss, please promise you will keep it around your neck, ja?”

Anna looked down to see the delicate silver chain and cross. Real silver. Her eyes widened and she swallowed guiltily. Far too expensive an item to give away to an acquaintance, a passerby who had stayed at their inn.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly accept such a—”

His hand curled around her own, closing it into a fist, the edges of the cross digging into her skin, he held her so tightly. “Please, miss, we must insist _._ To let you go such a route unprotected…it is wrong.”

His eyes were so afraid, so intent, that Anna could not refuse his gift. Superstitious nonsense or not, these people _believed_ in it so truly that they were legitimately afraid for her very soul. She had meant to put it on only to appease the villagers, who, as Anna had glanced around at, all looked less tense than a moment ago. She clasped the silver chain around her neck in good faith and it was as though the entire village had exhaled in relief. Even she had breathed a sigh of air.

They still were not happy about what they thought was pure folly on her part, but they had done their best by their ways to protect her. She would have to write at large in her journal about this send off once her trip began. It would be a good way to pass the time, and gather her thoughts on the subject. And Kristoff would want to hear all about it in detail…an account she found she was not comfortable sending in a letter. Better to have her thoughts all compiled in one place. She felt she should make a better habit of recording her experiences in her journal anyway. It would be a fond keepsake for the end of her trip that she and Kristoff could pour over together.

A number of the women began to mutter their charms at her in an old language she didn’t understand, and while she did not puzzle over the meaning—she knew a ward when she heard one—she was curious as to what the words actually meant and sorry she could not write it down for Kristoff later.

She asked her sledge companions, but they had not answered. Pretending almost ludicrously, that they could not hear her. Each sitting further apart from her as though her very presence was bad luck and would doom them all. The rudeness was shocking. She tried not to let that bother her, and contented herself with looking out the frosted window of the carriage, but staring at the villagers made her uneasy. She watched Oaken’s crestfallen face as the sledge began to move away, crossing himself over as his husband buried his face into his shoulder, sobbing with grief as Oaken held him tightly.

All at Anna’s departure.

She turned away, stricken by such a show of broad emotion. The villagers acting as though she had died _. Superstitious nonsense!_ She gritted her teeth stubbornly, unable to quell the unease the send off had caused in her mind. A dark cloud had fallen over her, leaving a blemish on her excitement. For the first time since she had set out for Castle Jökul, she wanted to turn around and go back home.

She supposed she couldn’t blame the villagers for their worry. The mountain pass was rather perilous in comparison to flat roads, and likely had claimed enough lives over the span of generations that stories of terror and unholy beasts plaguing the stretch of mountain had surfaced. Such stories helped to make sense of the needless loss of life. Wasn’t that where most myth and legend came from? The imaginations of people wanting to make sense of what they didn’t understand? Kristoff had said something like that to her once; her nerves calming at the memory.

The silver cross around her neck felt heavy at her throat, and she fingered it absently. The bit of silver _did_ make her feel better while travelling the lonely path up the mountains. The road was nearly crowded out by the dense forest. Its large, foreboding trees towering straight up into the sky as their bare limbs seemed to reach out towards the sledge like long, boney fingers from the grave.

She shuddered. This was hardly the time to dwell on the villagers’ stories— _warnings_ , of draugar, mares, and wicked trolls, and yet the landscape had certainly helped to evoke such vivid tales to mind. Needing to distract herself, Anna slipped her travel journal from her skirt purse, and opened it to an empty page, glad to have sharpened her set of graphite pencils before leaving.

The road became bumpier after awhile, and Anna was forced to quit her writing, tucking her book away and looking out the small, glass window, alarmed at first, seeing nothing but a vast chasm of fog and tree tops. Her seat unfortunately now on the side of the mountain’s edge. She swallowed down a bit of bile that had risen in her throat at the sight and looked away; the feel of nausea never quite fading.

The sky had darkened remarkably fast and the wind had picked up, swaying the sledge violently at times. Anna could hear the agitated cries from the horses.

She wasn’t alone in her immediate panic, her three companions too, seized hold of their seats, looking nervous. Anna closed her eyes, one hand clutching her seat, the other tight around the silver cross at her neck.

Fear gripped her, as the sledge suddenly lurched, throwing her against her side of the carriage as it tipped. Her cheek pressed up against the ice crusted widow, and she thanked God the door had been latched and locked tight. Just the idea of the door swinging open had her feeling rather faint. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, not daring to look down and see her end. The air feeling in short supply as she gasped for breath.

The horses shrilled and she was certain they were all done for, but the sledge abruptly settled, righting itself and continuing on as if Anna had not almost faced death.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” the driver called loudly to them, his voice hoarse against the howling wind and hard to hear through the walls of the sledge’s carriage. “Storm gave us a bit of trouble, but we’re past the worst of it now. Should be arriving at the fork soon, though I’m sorry to say, not on time.”

Anna didn’t care when they arrived, so long as they did. Nerves shot, she sat in mute silence the rest of the trip. She could have kissed the solid ground when they finally stopped, having made it safely to the fork. She could not wait to get out of the carriage and catch a breath of fresh air.

“Mustn’t do that, miss,” the driver warned, stopping her when she had opened the carriage door to disembark. “The wolves in this area, they are bold. Ravenous creatures and dangerous to men. They’ve no fear whatsoever, these beasts.”

Mollified, Anna quickly closed the carriage door and sat back in her seat, feeling more anxious than ever. Wolves, she found to be frightening creatures to begin with. The first time she’d heard them howling in the night had been an utterly terrifying experience for her. She’d never heard such a sound in Arendelle. Their haunting calls in the night had frequently kept her from restful slumber, and instead, troubled her dreams.

After several minutes of waiting, the driver was at her window with his lantern. He motioned for her to unlatch her window. She did so in haste, unpleasant thoughts of the driver and wolves consuming her.

“It’s near midnight,” the man said, his voice thick with apprehension as he glanced around while he spoke, “I’m afraid no one is coming for you. We arrived late, miss, and they’ve already gone back. You will have to continue on with us to the next town. I’ll not be leaving you here.”

This concerned Anna greatly. “Are you certain we can’t wait a few minutes more? Perhaps they are also late? I’ve made no arrangements to sleep elsewhere.”

The man shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare, not so close to midnight. Ill deeds past midnight, miss. Best to get off the road and indoors now, quick as we can manage to town. I can take you back here tomorrow.” He looked apologetic, “The missus and I can put you up for the ni—”

His words were abruptly cut off by the intrusion of a gleaming white sledge drawn by two pure white fjord stallions. It seemed to appear right out of nowhere, right out of thin air. It glided to a smooth stop beside Anna’s door.

“How quickly the dead travel,” the passenger beside her mumbled under his breath, speaking for the first time, though Anna was unclear if he was speaking to her or simply speaking aloud.

“Miss Anna?” the hooded driver of the new sledge inquired in a crisp, high voice, reminding Anna strangely of the sound cracking ice makes on a frozen river. Right before an errant step that leads many quickly to their end.

She found herself trembling at the very thought. Quickly brushing such nonsense off, she answered, “Yes, that’s me.”

The driver hopped from her seat with ease at Anna’s answer and gallantly opened the sledge door. She grasped Anna’s hand fiercely in her own, gripping it in a hard shake that made Anna’s hand ache when finally released. “My Mistress instructs me to see to your comforts in hopes you have a pleasant journey this very fine night.”

“I—thank you,” Anna meekly answered, trying to make out the woman’s features shrouded by the deep hood and the night, finding it odd that even up close she could not make out a face.

The woman was not listening and was already claiming Anna’s luggage and loading it onto the Countess’s sledge with an impossible sort of strength and speed.

“Best you climb in now and keep yourself warm. A traveler such as yourself is unaccustomed to the mountain air. We’d hate for you to catch an unexpected death.”

“Yes, yes of course,” Anna replied, gulping. Strange that this driver had not mentioned the wolves and instead the cold air. Probably had chosen her words carefully, not wanting to frighten a guest of her mistress.

Anna hurried over to the white sledge where the door was open and waiting for her. The driver shut it firmly behind her, startling her at the quickness in which she moved. Anna could have sworn the woman had been standing over by the other carriage. How had she made it to Anna so fast?

_You’re tired. It’s dark, voices carry. You thought she was somewhere she wasn’t._

“Wrap yourself up in the furs, miss,” her strange driver said, “and there is a flask of brandy under the seat, should your blood cool and need it.”

Anna most certainly felt like she needed it, and not for the cold, but prided herself on abstinence. She feared after the night she’d already had, she’d down the bottle in one go and prove herself an ungracious guest.

She snuggled herself into the furs, finding that even though she was without the body heat of the three other travellers, this carriage was warmer. Likely the heated bricks under the seat had been freshened in anticipation of her arrival.

Settled in, and comfortable from the soft furs and the warmth, she closed her eyes, hoping to sleep the rest of the way to the castle.

It was a peculiar ride. One Anna was not sure she had dreamed or not, parts so real and yet so unreal that what she was witnessing could not be possible. _Strange dreams from nerves. Strange dreams from strange places._

Her new driver stopped the sledge frequently, preoccupied with odd blue flames that seemed to flicker along the road they followed. _Lanterns,_ Anna told herself sleepily though she could not recall the flames housed in any actual lanterns and could only remember the flames themselves.

It was the ferocious howling and snarling of wolves that startled her from her drowsiness. She jerked upright, alert and frightened, peering out her window. Dark shapes of the animals ran alongside the sledge without fear.

She jumped back from the window with a shriek, her heart nearly stopping when a great ugly snout slammed up against the glass pane. The saliva from the wolf’s massive jaws already beginning to freeze where its face had struck the window. More wolves slunk out from the woods and ran up alongside the sledge, attacking it, and all while it was still in motion! Anna had never seen any animals behave in such an aggressive manner as this before.

Their only hope was to outrun such creatures. Surely her driver was seasoned enough for such instances.

To Anna’s horror, the sledge came to a halt. The wolves surrounded them; their numbers increased enough to block the road. Others, she could hear, were running their bodies up against the sledge so it shook with violence as though they were deliberately trying to knock it sideways and crack it open.

“Don’t!” Anna cried out, horrified to see her driver from her window. The woman having jumped down from her seat to face the wolves. She would be torn to pieces! Anna could scarcely bear to watch the scene unfold, and yet what she saw was by far the most unreal thing she had witnessed all evening.

The driver stood firmly against the wolves and held up one single, small hand as though giving such beasts a silent command in which they would obey. When she spoke, Anna was reminded again of ice and its deadly cold.

“Begone!” the woman commanded, seeming to speak to the leader of the pack as though it could understand. “No meddling from you, little one, now go! Go, I say!”

And they did.

Anna stared wide eyed as the wolves began to back away from the sledge, from the road, back into the forest and melting into the darkness until even the sheen of their eyes had vanished to black. To see such creatures, cower and whimper before a mere mortal woman was so absurd and impossible that Anna immediately felt fear rather than relief.

She did reach under her seat for the brandy then, her fingers trembling as she uncapped the flask, and drank straight from the bottle as the sledge once again was put into motion as though the encounter with the wolves had never occurred, leaving Anna wholly disturbed. The liquid burned down her throat, but it dulled the senses and muddled the mind, and kept her subdued enough to rest her eyes and watch the night no more.


	3. Act 1, Chapter 3: Anna

She was unaware of the time when roused from her sleep. _Sleep._ It felt weird to describe it as such. She must have slept though, there was no way she would have missed such a sight as the castle as they approached it, and yet somehow, she had.

It was a grand, impressive fortress of ageless, gleaming white rock perched on the mountain top. Surrounded only by the vast amount of sky, which to Anna, gave the place a lonely, isolated feeling. It made her sorely miss the crowded city of Arendelle and all its neatly lined buildings and houses, where friends and family were but a stone’s throw away. It was sad to think that anyone who lived nearby in the two small villages below would have nothing to do with the castle. For all its beauty and splendor, it was likely a very lonely place to live.

The outside lanterns burned bright as they entered the immense courtyard, and Anna was relieved to see orange flame instead of the blue along the road. Such a majestic place, the likes of which she had never before seen. She doubted she’d ever be in such a grand setting again.

If she squinted and trained her eye against the dark, she could make out fountain sculptures that were intricate and strange. She would very much like to explore the courtyard in the daylight, she decided. The architecture, the décor, and the various darkened archways steeped in night and silence, all led off to so many possibilities for her curiosity. Perhaps she would even do a few sketches of the landscape herself in her free time.

As Anna marvelled at the courtyard, her driver helped her down from the sledge. The driver’s tight, bruising grip on her hand was as unsettling as it was the first time, and reminded her of the oddness she’d experienced all in the span of an evening. It was very much like a surreal sort of dream, where it felt like she would wake up and find herself back at home in her bed in Arendelle.

The woman removed her luggage from the sledge, again displaying a speed that put Anna ill at ease. Her luggage was neatly set down beside her where she stood. Without a word, her driver climbed back up into the seat of the sledge and cracked the reins. The horses stirred and Anna stared in shock as her driver just left, wordlessly disappearing down one of the darkened archways.

Anna could hardly abide by such rudeness. She’d been left alone at the door! Where was the butler to receive her? Why wasn’t the driver announcing her arrival? Anna puzzled over the strangeness of it all, stuck at the door, shivering in the dead of the night. No bell to ring, no chain to pull…surely the driver must be coming back?

Having nothing to do but stand at this great doorway and wait, Anna tried to occupy her thoughts, staring at the iron studs in the massive door and trying to decide just how old they were. Were they original? Had they been replaced as time marched on? This whole evening feeling like a nightmare she now very much wished to wake up from.

Surely, someone would come to greet her soon? She shivered, a chill creeping through her and not from the cold. It was too quiet out here, she realized, the deafening silence eerie and unwelcome as she stood alone. The shadows around the empty courtyard looked much darker than they had before. Their shapes seemed to bend and twist into unnatural forms out from the corner of her eye. When she looked though, everything looked as it was supposed to.

Still, she couldn’t shake the distinct feeling of being watched from the shadows in secret. As if she were prey waiting to be pounced upon and devoured by some stealthy predator. She hugged her arms to her body, feeling quite exposed, and with each passing minute, more and more anxious.

What if she was stuck out here all night?

Oh, how she _wished_ Kristoff was with her. A lover’s tender embrace would quell her fears in an instant.

A lone howl sounding far off and past the gates made her startle. She inched closer to one of the lanterns by the door, despite being closer to the shadows it threw. She wondered how much time had passed since she’d been forced to wait here. The feeling of being watched so strong now that she was actually starting to believe there _was_ something unseen in the shadows, and kept glancing nervously to one particularly dark spot. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a loud, creaking noise sounded and the door began to move.

The massive door opened, revealing a haggard old woman…and only a haggard old woman. Anna gawked. There was no way such a feat of strength could have been performed by this frail, ancient thing just within the doorway. But Anna saw no one else.

The old woman was remarkably pale, a sickly pallor to her complexion. She was taller than Anna, even with stooped posture. She wore her stark white hair twisted in a long braid that fell over one shoulder. The texture bringing to mind coarse, frayed rope. She was dressed in a lady’s evening attire of pure white silks and rich brocade that swept the floor with a train that denoted status.

Anna’s immediate impression was _‘wraith’_ and _‘lady in white’_ like that of the antagonists in Kristoff’s favourite ghost stories and legends. Perhaps it was the result of her evening prior to this meeting that had roused such thoughts, but Anna couldn’t help it. Not a drop of colour on the old woman but the garish red painted on her thin, drawn lips.

Her receiver held a lantern that glowed eerily, casting equally strange shadows, and with her empty hand, she beckoned Anna closer.

“Welcome! Welcome to my home!” she greeted Anna, but made no motion of stepping past the threshold to meet her, and stood as still as stone. “Enter freely and of your own will!”

Anna stood there, unsure what to make of this, but someone had come to bid her welcome, regardless of the strangeness of it.

The moment Anna crossed the threshold and entered, the woman moved upon her in a flurry, holding out her hand and snatching Anna’s in it. The strength of the old woman’s hand made Anna wince and was not unlike the grip of her sledge driver.

“Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!”

For a moment, Anna doubted if it were not one and the same person, so familiar the handshake felt. _Was this the Countess herself?_ If so, the protocol for introductions in which Anna was used to was not present at all. Disoriented, and unsure how exactly to proceed, she found herself asking, as if to make sure she was wrong, “Countess Elsa?”

“I am Countess Elsa, yes, but _please,_ we are friends! Elsa, just Elsa. No need for such formalities! I bid you welcome, my young friend Anna, to my house.” She ushered Anna further inside. “Come in! Come in! The night air is cold and you must be both hungry and tired from your travels.”

The Countess hung the lamp on a bracket and hurried out the door to fetch Anna’s luggage, and began collecting it at once. Horrified, Anna immediately made to step outside, but the Countess waved her off.

“No, no, dear girl! You are my guest. It is late and all my servants have gone to bed. I will see to your comfort myself.” She insisted upon this, carrying Anna’s luggage all along the passage ways and up a winding staircase, and then along another passage. For a frail old woman, she was remarkably youthful in manner and spry.

When she reached the end of the hall, she threw open another heavy door, and Anna nearly cried out in joy to see such a warm well-lit room, where a table was set for dinner with a great roaring fire burning in the hearth.

The Countess smiled at Anna’s reaction, her grin revealing pearly white, sharp teeth, and Anna blinked unsure for a moment if it was not just the flames casting strange shadows. The Countess had already closed her mouth as she hurried on with Anna’s luggage, opening an adjoining door to a quaint octagonal room with no windows and only a small lamp. Past that, Anna was delighted to see a well-furnished bedchamber; a large tester bed with thick curtains, the sheets crisp and clean and turned down, fireplace lit—all cozy and prepared just for her. Such exquisite hospitality.

Her bags were put down and the Countess smiled again, this time confirming that her white teeth—particularly her long canines—were indeed pointed, as if filed. _Such a strange custom,_ Anna mused, remembering that different places held different standards in appearances, and wondered if it would be seen as rude to inquire after the custom.

“Please refresh yourself after such a long journey.” The Countess motioned to the waiting washbasin. “Take as much time as you wish, as young ladies are wont to look their best.” The Countess chuckled at this, a gravelly forced sound that Anna instantly found off putting, as though she were being made fun of. “When you are ready, come into the other room, and I will have your supper prepared.”

She left Anna to her routine, and Anna hurried to ready herself for dinner. As tired as she was, she was also quite hungry and could already smell the roast chicken prepared for dinner wafting in the air. She hastily removed her outerwear, glad to be rid of her heavy coat and gloves. She paused when she went to straighten her hair, unable to find a single mirror in her room. She was left to tidy herself up as best as she could without her reflection to confirm her appearance.

Anna met with the Countess for dinner, keeping as pleasant company as she could while she ate. The Countess did not dine with her, explaining that she had already supped before Anna’s arrival, but insisted on keeping Anna company regardless. Her eyes never wavering from off of Anna to the point that it made Anna uncomfortable.

Afterwards, she bade Anna to come retire with her by the fire, two wingback chairs waiting, and though Anna was near exhausted, she obliged her host. She had barely risen from her seat at the table when she heard them.

The wolves.

She stiffened as their howling increased in numbers and grew louder, sounding as though they were right outside the drawn windows. She feared if she peeked behind the thick velvet curtains, she would actually see the savage beasts right there even though she was serval floors higher.

“Listen to them,” the Countess squealed, her voice elated with a euphoric gleam in her old eyes, “the children of the night. What music they make!”

Anna blanched, her fingers curling tightly around the back of the chair as she remembered her earlier encounter with the wolves.

The Countess noticed, a small, placating smile upon her lips. “Ah,” she said sagely, “I suppose it is difficult for a young lady of the city to enter into the feelings of a hunter.”

She was at Anna’s side with a speed that startled, and Anna took an unconscious step backwards, away from the Countess, who was now standing very close. Her breath, foul against Anna’s neck with such a rank, acrid odor that Anna inwardly cringed. 

Before Anna could move, she reached for Anna’s hand, and to Anna’s shame, she recoiled, noticing that the Countess had fine white hairs sprouting from the palms of her hand.

The Countess smiled again, all her pointed teeth showing, and stepped lightly past Anna. She gestured her forward to the waiting armchairs, “You will find things different here. It is an old place filled with old thoughts and old ways.”

Anna swallowed, and did as the Countess beckoned, taking her seat in the chair opposite of the strange, unnerving woman. She was unsure what to make of her unusual hostess. They sat in silence until the Countess began to ask after Anna’s trip.

From there, they spoke of many things, mostly Anna answering the Countess’s questions and curiosity about herself and Arendelle. All the while, desperately wishing she could escape to her bedchamber, the expanse of the night taking its toll on her wearied mind.

“Is it a friendly place?” the Countess asked, leaning forward with interest. “So many places are unwelcoming and cruel these days.”

“Oh, yes,” Anna answered, “Arendelle is simply lovely. There’s hardly any crime, the streets are relatively safe at any given time. I often walk home from the gallery at dusk, there are enough people around and practically everyone knows one another.”

“Good, good.” The Countess steepled her thin, boney fingers together. “I am very pleased to visit such a place. Perhaps even move there myself in permanent residence, once my business here is complete. I am weary of superstition and old ways of thinking.” Her eyes flickered in disdain to Oaken’s cross around Anna’s neck.

Anna laughed, doing her best to brush off the odd look in the Countess’ eye. “You won’t find much of that in Arendelle. It’s a very modern thinking city.”

In the distance, she heard the crow of a rooster, and the Countess stood up abruptly. “Goodness me! The time! And here I have kept my lovely young friend up far too late and after such long travel. If you’ll excuse me, I must bid you good night. Sleep, dream well, and awaken at your own leisure. I will be out until the late afternoon tomorrow, as most days, so sleep as much as you need. You will not inconvenience a soul.”

Anna was thankful to be excused, and stifled a yawn before the Countess left her.

Once in her bedchamber, her head barely hit the pillow before she fell into a deep slumber.


	4. Act 1, Chapter 4: Anna

Anna’s Journal – February 7

_‘I slept far too late into the day and admit I am rather embarrassed by it. I did not wake up until well into the afternoon, and am thankful for Kristoff’s pocket watch—and not just to swoon over his portrait inside! His token of affection will serve me as an actual time piece here. How funny he will think that is when I tell him. He was so sheepish about giving it in the first place, but it is a piece I do love quite a bit and it does make me think of him. I cannot believe such an estate as grand as Castle Jökul does not appear to have any clocks! Or mirrors! Such a strange and different place from what I am used to._

_I was unable to ring for a servant, having no bell, and had to look after myself this morning…or I guess I should say, afternoon. I really should not have slept so long. Very strange that I could not seem to find anyone about, but the table I dined at with the Countess last night was set out in cold breakfast for me, or I suppose by the time I actually arrived, luncheon. The coffee was hot, so someone was about. I just couldn’t find anyone. Very peculiar. An odd deficiency in the household that is otherwise very grand._

_There was a note from the Countess sitting on my plate apologizing for being out and absent, inviting me to explore the library across the hall. Such a library! Kristoff would not know what to do with so many books on so many topics he adores all at once and in once place! I would not see him for days if such a library existed back home._

_I am awaiting the Countess’s return, in hopes that I may ask to see the gallery today and begin my work. I am anxious to start. In the meantime, I am writing a list of books from the Countess’s collection that I think Kristoff would enjoy in hopes that we can find our own copies when I get back.’_

***

The gallery was poorly lit and not at all well kept. Anna was dismayed upon entering to see the dusty, dank room. It was obvious that the gallery was never used, and Anna was shocked to see the state of it. Cobwebs hung from corners, dust layered every surface; the thick, floor length velvet curtains still drawn over at set of windows further in. She wondered why the staff neglected even the most basic of tidying. She could understand the curtains not being drawn if the room was unused, but the dust and cobwebs? Unacceptable.

The Countess placed her lamp on a small end table just inside the gallery doorway, giving the affect of dismal gloom as the light drowned in the darkness that enveloped the room. Anna would have to open the curtains, though she doubted with the setting sun, she’d have much light for long to look at anything properly.

Not one to be easily discouraged, she set about the room, her papers and pens in hand.

“It’s very grand,” Anna complimented, forcing a smile and trying to find something pleasant to say about the gallery. And it was very grand. The gallery was a huge, narrow room that at one time must have been a centre of attention in the castle. Now, however, it had fallen into waste and ruin. She supposed that was probably the case for a lot of art she would come across in her career. Some people, like herself, valued and appreciated it, others simply did not. The Countess appeared to fall in the latter category.

“I never cared for this room,” the Countess said with a sniff of contempt, staring coldly into the blackened back of the room as if she were speaking to the gallery itself and insulting it.

She made no effort to follow Anna into the gallery. “I will leave you now to your work, but impart a word of caution; you may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked—which obviously, you will not wish to go.” The polite smile the Countess gave was too wide and never quite reached her eyes.

Anna had hardly planned to go snooping about if that’s what the Countess thought and was implying. Frankly, she was a bit offended at the implication. She was a professional and here for work, and not only that, it was highly impolite and improper. The most ungracious of guests. She was certain she’d kept her face neutral and polite as she nodded, though she must have looked indignant by this, because the Countess continued, as if needing to give further explanation.

“There are reasons that all things are as they are, and if you knew the things I know, you would perhaps understand.” She paused for such a length of time that Anna thought she was done speaking. When Anna opened her mouth to reply, the Countess went on, “We are in the North Mountains and it is not Arendelle. Our ways are not your ways, and there will be many things to you that would seem strange, I suspect you have already encountered much strangeness here. So, I would bid you, my young friend, Anna, _do not test the locks._ ”

“Of course,” Anna replied as courteously as she could, but finding the words on her tongue strained. “I will respect your wishes.”

They stood in uncomfortable silence, the Countess remaining at the doorway, and Anna in the halo of light from her own lamp, standing within the gallery. She exhaled a sigh of relief when the Countess finally tore her strange gaze off of her and turned to leave.

Still, the Countess lingered at the doorway as if debating to say more, and turned again towards Anna. She cast her eyes around the gallery, a hard, almost cruel expression on her face. Possessive and commanding, her eyes gleamed about the darkness before stopping in a false kindness upon Anna.

“Let me further advise you, my dear young Anna, no—let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave your rooms as you are now, you will not by chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories. There are bad dreams for those who would sleep unwisely here.”

A chill crept over Anna at such an odd, odd request framed as a warning. The blood in her veins feeling as if it had turned to ice in that moment. The manner in which the Countess spoke of such a frivolous act disturbed her and she gulped, goosepimples prickling along her flesh. All she could think to do was nod her head profusely in agreement.

“Be warned!” the Countess continued rather sternly, and Anna wanted to shrink back into the shadows and cease to have the Countess’s attention on her. “Should you sleep now or have it ever overcome you, then make haste to your own bedchamber or quarters, and your rest will be safe. But if you are not careful in this respect, then—”

She finished her speech with a rather gruesome gesture, motioning with her hands as though she were washing them clean, and Anna suppressed a shudder of horror at such an implication. It was a bit much for what Anna could only assume was an advisory not to snoop.

She continued to nod mutely in reply, eager to be away from the Countess. The gallery and its encompassing darkness seemed to loom over her, drawing her in as though she were a butterfly caught in a net, but it was nothing compared to the dread she felt all the way to the marrow of her bones in the presence of the Countess. She welcomed the stale gloom of the gallery over her present company.

Seemingly satisfied with the effect her words held over Anna, the Countess left her with a slight bow, the guise of an amiable old woman shifting woodenly over her features as she slunk off into the shadows down the hallway they had come by.

It was only after the woman had left that Anna realized that the Countess _had not_ taken her lamp back with her, and had instead walked back in total darkness. Anna stared at the lamp sitting on the table where it had been placed. Her knees felt very weak then, and she lowered herself to the ground in her pool of light. Still wondering if she wasn’t trapped half in a dream.

Or a nightmare.

After several minutes of thinking it over, trying to secure rational thought over fear, she decided that the Countess hadn’t meant to frighten her on purpose. Or at least that was what she was telling herself. Old people could be funny like that sometimes, especially those isolated and alone. The Countess was all that remained of her line and had only her servants as company—a divide in class and friendships that had likely catered to absurd behaviour rather than helped quell it. The woman certainly held an authoritative and strict command, an extremity, Anna assumed, of her age and title.

She got up from the floor and dusted herself off. There was no sense in delaying her work any longer and wasting what precious little daylight was left to her. She went to the two large curtains, and tugged them open, a cloud of dust from the disturbance making her sneeze. She waved her hand to try and dispel the dust quickly.

Behind the curtains, Anna was surprised to find a set of wrought iron and glass patio doors leading to a balcony overlooking the courtyard instead of just plain windows. How lovely it would be to open them and let in some fresh air while she worked. To her disappointment, the doors to the balcony were not only locked, but also padlocked with new iron.

Anna frowned at the padlock. Such a glaringly new addition, and in a room that had gone to neglect otherwise. She had no doubts that it had been installed recently, the newest thing she had seen in this entire place. There wasn’t even a layer of dust formed on the lock. Puzzled, and bit uneasy at the discovery, she wiped a layer of grime from one of the small window panes to peer outside.

The sun was setting, the soft saturated orange shifting to pinks and purples, colouring the skyline and painting the courtyard in a beautiful, serene glow, the white rock seeming to take on the colours of the sky itself. _Absolutely breathtaking._

She tapped her finger thoughtfully on the lock, the balcony looked stable, no missing railings, nothing dangerous that Anna could see.

_What are you trying to keep out?_

_—Or in?_

Her stomach dropped at that thought. The lock was new and so was she…

_Don’t be ridiculous, Anna!_

The Countess was simply an eccentric old woman. The poor thing was probably senile; she looked old enough for such afflictions of the mind. Anna straightened her resolve and decided that she would just do her best not to cause ire or upset the Countess in any way. The woman was a bit unstable and was probably paranoid having a stranger in her home for a number of days. Likely under just as much stress as Anna was. This was new to both of them. The Countess needed sympathy from Anna, not fear.

With that settled, Anna set about her work, brushing the incident off once she began to start the cataloguing process. Her work had certainly been set out for her, the gallery was not only unkept, but it was a mess! There were paintings on the walls, paintings stacked up against the walls, piled on the floor in every which way left to collect dust…

Anna stared at the room. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it. It was more like an unorganized storage room than a gallery. And that was only the half of the room she could actually _see._ The back of the room still remained unlit and as black as ink.

She likely would not get around to any proper cataloguing tonight and resigned herself to that fact. Next best course of action would be to take initial stock of everything and survey the room. At least that would give her an idea of what all she had to work with, and help her form a plan of action for tomorrow’s work.

Even then, without better lighting, it was futile. How was she supposed to do her job properly without the means to do it? Tomorrow she would need to bring more lamps, start in the day. For now, she could at least start separating pieces that were of interest to her on sight, and work her way through the rest of the gallery that way.

She jotted down some quick shorthand notes, describing the gallery with her first impressions, and then began to explore, starting with the pieces she could actually see with the fading sunlight. She’d take her lamp to venture into the darkened recesses of the room later, deciding there was no point in wasting her daylight trying to walk the whole gallery at once, like Weselton had taught her. He’d frown at her impulsive approach, always preferring the orderly one, but even he would have had a time trying to sort this mess.

What she could see were mostly portraits of the past Counts and Countesses who had lived in the castle, almost all ruined in someway or another. Even those still hanging on the wall. Water damage, pests, sunlight… Anna sighed heavily as another portrait of the current Countess had the face torn out, the canvas ripped beyond recognition, likely by rodents.

All of the Countess’ portraits so far had been faceless—something Anna was having to adamantly tell herself was just a coincidence. It still didn’t stop the prickling of hairs standing on her neck when yet another was ruined beyond recognition, identifiable only by the brass nameplate. The date on it written wrong.

_Great._ Another hurdle she’d have to face. Inaccurate dating. No way the body painted matched the age.

By the time the sunlight had waned, Anna’s collection of good paintings only amounted to four or five, and even those weren’t very good. She had expected to have more salvageable pieces than not. Most galleries wouldn’t pay much for mediocre art of family portraits. Perhaps a historical society would though—she scribbled down a quick note of it before pulling out Kristoff’s pocket watch to check the time. She squinted at the clockface, surprised that two hours had already passed.

The room had darkened considerably now that dusk had fallen to night, and she considered packing it in for the evening, finding herself hesitant to venture further into the back of the gallery as though something more than paintings awaited her there.

Her skin prickled. Twice now since arriving at the castle, she’d had that apprehension of the dark, almost convinced she was being watched, hunted from the shadows. It was a silly thought, Anna had never been afraid of the dark before, and had always been most at home in the stillness of galleries.

_A quick walk around,_ she told herself sternly. Then she could retire back to her well-lit quarters and get a decent sleep. She’d return first thing in the morning after breakfast to resume her work. In full daylight. Finish her initial walkthrough tonight, complete this task, and she’d be able to start on her actual work in the morning.

Yes, that was the better plan. If the rest of the gallery was just as unsalvageable as what she’d already seen, her stay at Castle Jökul would not be a very long one at all, and that was a thought she found she rather enjoyed. As grand and opulent as the castle was, Anna wanted to get this job over and done with. Picking up her lantern, she turned towards the pitch-black of the back half of the gallery and took a step forward.

Sweeping the lantern across the dark to avoid tripping over anything, like low benches, stacks of paintings or debris, she caught the sudden shape of a man standing completely still and silent, staring right at her from the dark. The quick pan of her lantern light glinting off his eyes.

She screeched in terror, stumbling backwards and nearly dropping the lantern, her heart thumping madly in her chest. _A man._ A man standing there, right in the dark, watching her. _Staring_ at her. How long had he been in here with her? This whole time? How come she hadn’t heard him move or breathe? Why on earth hadn’t he _said_ anything to her?

_Staff,_ her panicked brain answered quickly, finding a reasonable explanation. _A servant. Must have just come in from another entrance. You probably scared the living daylights out of him too, screaming like that!_

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized, finding her voice and moving her light back to where she had seen the man. “You startled me, I didn’t reali—”

She stopped, her light resting on the man.

Or what she had _thought_ was a man standing before her. _God,_ he had looked so real in that quick glimpse of light, his eyes…she’d actually thought—

She laughed nervously, the sound and act helping to settle her nerves and regain her composure as she walked straight over to the man.

Or at least a painting of one.

She exhaled a deep breath, shaking her head softly, feeling unbelievably stupid and relieved all at the same time. Her body still feeling weak and jittery at the unexpected fright. All over a _painting._

Not an actual man, but a full-scale portrait of one.

She seemed to need to keep repeating it to herself, her heart still pounding hard, the sound drumming in her ears.

“ _You,_ ” she addressed the man in the painting, half scolding as she stepped closer to investigate; seeing that his eyes followed her movement in that uncanny way some portraits did, giving him more life than he had, “nearly scared me half to death.”

He was a handsome subject to be sure, but Anna was more interested in the painting itself, because upon closer inspection it was obvious to her. She had finally found something of quality here.

“Aren’t you just _exquisite,_ ” she murmured in awe, running her fingers over the expert brush strokes that made up his chest, wiping away the dust. “And is that… _clay_ I detect in your pigment? Possibly hand ground?”

A thrum of excitement raced through her, grabbing her notebook, she began to write extensively about this piece. Not only was it done by someone of immense skill, but it appeared they mixed their own pigment as well! She couldn’t have asked for a better find.

No artist’s mark on it though, and Anna blew out a huff of frustrated breath.

“Who are you?” She checked all the corners of the canvas, all the lines. Nothing. Who on earth painted this well and didn’t leave their mark? Even the frame was devoid of a brass plate. The artist and its subject a mystery. She’d have to try and dismount it from the wall tomorrow to see the back.

Having finally met some success, Anna’s enthusiasm for the gallery returned and she continued to make her way down to the end of the room, delighted to find landscapes of the North mountain range and its forests that all matched the brush of her mystery artist. A few of the castle’s courtyard, and what Anna assumed were its gardens too. All in lovely condition. Perfect for a public gallery.

“You must have been a resident artist here, the Countess your patroness,” Anna hypothesized aloud after reading the dates on a few that had them. She found that speaking to the paintings, or rather, the painter, helped shake off some of the unease and gloom that permeated through the room. Breaking the silence definitely made her feel less alone _and_ less jumpy. “Why only one portrait though? Your real skill was certainly with people and not still life.”

It was true. Her mystery artist’s skill with the portrait of the man outshone all this other work. She bit off a squeal of delight when she reached the end of the gallery, one lone painting on the final wall. This one actually preserved, covered in a sheet. Only the bottom half remained exposed, and by now, Anna recognized her artist’s strokes well enough to identify their work. The brass plate on the bottom was rubbed smooth with age, only the Countess’ name remaining.

_‘Countess Elsa’._

_Finally, an intact portrait of my host,_ Anna thought, a sense of giddy curiosity washing over her as she reached up and pulled the sheet from the painting.

She inhaled sharply as the sheet fluttered away revealing an unfinished portrait. The careful graphite lines and colourless canvas still exposed in some places. Bile rose in her throat as she took in the whole of the painting. _This_ had been done on _purpose._ The artist’s masterpiece forever unfinished and marred in a way Anna could only describe as grotesque. All the more appalling by its gilded frame, which was untouched by the tragedy, indicating that the painting had been framed _after_.

The painting had been ruined beyond repair by what looked like a fit of anger, _of rage_. An act of incomprehensible violence. Something dark and thick had been splashed across the canvas, concentrated over the Countess’ face and left to drip down and soak the painting in sin.

Anna scrunched her brows, leaning in for a better look, though her body resisted, wanting to recoil instead.

_What_ is _that?_

_Wine? Paint? …Tar?_

Whatever it was, it left her uncomfortable. Vulnerable. The gallery which had seemed so vast, now seemed much too small, its walls closing in on her, suffocating her. The inexplicable urge to run screaming from this place rushed like a current through her veins.

The gallery itself seemed to place an answer in her mind. A dark, foreboding whisper that sent a shiver of icy dread straight down her spine.

_Blood._

Someone had _died_ here.

She hugged her arms to herself as if the gallery had dipped in temperature, and glanced around nervously.

It was time to quit, retire to her room. Her imagination was running wild and getting the best of her.

Stiffening her back, Anna hurried towards the exit of the gallery, but her eyes strayed to the exquisite portrait of the man as she passed, his eyes following her, and she inexplicably stopped, staring up into his face.

“You’re a self portrait, aren’t you?” She wasn’t even sure what had made her decide such a thing. Where the idea had come from, but somehow, it sounded right.

Sad, mournful, his eyes seemed to stare straight into her soul. No answer to be found, but instead a warning. A warning in those eyes to heed what he had not, and Anna quickly looked away, this time breaking into a run. Those eyes following her straight out the door and all the way back to her bedchamber.


	5. Act 1, Chapter 5: Anna

Anna’s Journal – Feb 8

_What an awful sleep. I think it’s the hours I’m now keeping, or perhaps it’s this place. I am afraid that I am not acclimating well, and I do not think I will ever get used to the sound of the wolves at night. I awoke to them several times last night, and would you believe I was actually grateful? They woke me from the grip of such outlandish, nightmarish dreams. Dreams I do not quite remember, only that the Countess was there and that I was running, trying to get away and unable to. Trapped within the walls of this castle…the blood-soaked walls of this castle._

_It must be a combination of that painting, the Countess herself, and the stress of the work ahead of me. Such a daunting task. I remember being so excited to come here on my own, and in a few short days of actually being here, I want to go home as quickly as possible. I wish I had been able to accompany dear Weselton as his assistant instead of being here by myself. His experience is better equipped to handle the Countess than my own. I do not like being here alone, nor do I like being alone in the Countess’ company. I cannot explain it, but something about the air around her is so pervasive, so wrong, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I know that sounds childish and silly to be frightened of a harmless, old woman—eccentricities and all. I cannot help it though. There is something very off here, and I do not like it._

_I miss Kristoff, and wish he were here. Perhaps I will write him today, that will make me feel better._

***

She was furious with herself for sleeping in. Sure, she’d had a rough night full of unpleasant dreams, but she’d managed to get to bed at a decent enough hour that she shouldn’t have slept in so long. _Damn this place and its lack of clocks!_

And lack of staff. Again, nobody had come to attend her. If it wasn’t for the grand meals and clean, freshly made quarters, Anna was inclined to think the staff didn’t actually exist here. She’d still not seen or heard anyone else about the castle. Only her and the Countess.

_They’re probably terrified of their mistress too,_ Anna thought wryly. _And probably instructed to stay out of sight._

When she pulled open the curtain from her window, she was surprised to see the noon sun was already high in the overcast sky. She had wanted to be in the gallery right first thing this morning. And now her morning was already gone. Her coveted daylight uncooperative with the cloud cover.

There was nothing for it, she’d have to start in as quickly as possible. She did not want to linger in the gallery after dark again. She shivered, absently crossing herself and not wanting to recall the final portrait she had found of the Countess, and at the same time, wanting to see it in broad daylight. Wanting to confirm to herself that the utter disrepair of the gallery, combined with the dark had simply created a scenario in which her imagination had gotten carried away. She’d find that what had been splattered across that painting was not blood.

There would be a reasonable explanation for it. In fact, Anna had a good mind to inquire about it to the Countess herself…if the woman wasn’t so intimidating.

It might be a good way in which Anna could establish a friendlier relationship with the woman. The Countess likely had plenty of stories to tell of her youth and was probably waiting for an opportunity to talk about herself and the history of this place. Anna felt like kicking herself for not asking to begin with. Normally, she wouldn’t have hesitated for the history. She loved learning about old places.

Friendship, not fear was what the situation last night called for. If Kristoff had been here, he would have already asked after the stories, probably at dinner over his glass, imploring with interest and sincerity, charming the Countess with his good humour, forward approach, and genuine love of tales.

But how would even Kristoff bring up the portrait?

Anna was hesitant to inquire to the Countess about it despite her curiosity and it being the practical option.

_Who would frame and hang such a painting?_

Nobody in their right mind, that was who.

And the _last_ thing Anna wanted to do was upset the Countess. _Or find out she was even crazier._

Anna already found the woman unnerving to begin with, her often harsh facial expressions layered under too much friendliness, the strange warnings and rules, her lack of personal space, even the hours she kept…Anna involuntarily shuddered. The woman was terrifying in her eccentricities.

If she hurried, she might be able to avoid the Countess altogether and do without her company until dinner. _That_ would be ideal. She could take the day to think about how to broach the subject of the painting.

Anna had managed to dress herself; albeit clumsily, and felt her corset was a bit looser than preferable, but it would have to do. She was fighting a losing battle with pinning her hair though, a near impossible task trying to hold her small, compact mirror with one hand, and pin with the other. She let out a frustrated string of curses when a section of her hair tumbled down her shoulder before she could pin it.

“Such unbecoming language for a young lady,” the Countess’s voice reprimanded, her foul breath feeling like hot ice right against Anna’s earlobe.

Startled by the close contact and sudden intrusion, Anna jerked her hand, the pin she held scraping along her jawline with a sharp slice that drew a thin bead of blood across her skin. She would have winced at the pain had she not been rendered paralyzed, the compact shaking slightly in her hand as she stared in disbelief at the reflection of herself in the mirror.

And only herself.

The Countess _should_ have been reflected in the glass.

But she wasn’t there.

Baffled, Anna tore her gaze from the mirror and towards the voice. Sure enough, there stood the Countess, as real as could be and much too close for comfort.

And within the line of the compact mirror.

Anna kept her head still and glanced back at the compact. No Countess, even when she shifted the mirror glass slightly to each side.

_What in the world?_

The Countess clicked her tongue, an unpleasant sound that bore itself from Anna’s ear into her brain, making her want to shrink away from the woman. _Why was the woman so insistent on invading personal space?_

“And look, now you’ve injured yourself, and drawn _blood_. So young and fresh—” She smacked her dry lips together and Anna shut her eyes, cringing at the famished sound. “Here, let me help you—”

“It’s fine!” Anna blurted, leaping into action the moment she felt that brittle nailed, hairy palmed hand move towards her face. “I’ve a handkerchief here, it’s nothing but a scratch!” She blotted the white cotton to her cut, wishing desperately the Countess would step back and away from her.

“It’s a dangerous thing to draw blood in these mountains, bad luck. Bad luck indeed _._ Such a gravely careless thing to have done.” She made that awful clicking sound with her tongue again, as though Anna was the one at fault, and not the Countess for sneaking up on her unannounced.

And _why_ had she not heard her? Surely, she would have heard the old woman approach. Even if she had the lightest, slippered step, her long train swishing along the floor was a distinct enough sound that Anna recognized.

She did not want to even think about the absurdity of no reflection. Perhaps the glass was faulty or warped, though if that were so, why had her own reflection appeared fine?

And she _did not_ like the ominous tone the Countess’ voice took on or the way her eyes seemed to be transfixed on the red droplets that had leaked through the handkerchief. There was definitely something very off about the Countess, and Anna wanted to flee her company as soon as possible. The discovery that not even in her own chambers was she safe from the woman’s presence left her with a chill to her spine, and a sinking sense of dread that would not leave her be.

“I’m sorry,” Anna apologized automatically, praying the woman would step back.

“It’s this cursed object that’s to blame for such a misfortune!” And before Anna could say or do anything, the Countess moved with a speed that marvelled and snatched up the compact mirror. She threw open the bedchamber window and promptly tossed Anna’s compact right out of it. The compact hit the ground in the courtyard below, the smashing of glass confirming the end of Anna’s only mirror.

Anna did not know how to respond to this. She stood there in shock, trying to makes sense of what had just happened. Clearly, the Countess was not quite right in her head, and Anna needed to tread carefully.

“Pretty, young girls and their vanity.” The Countess sounded wistful. “I suppose such folly can’t be helped for the sake beauty, though such radiant locks should be worn down.” She reached out and trailed her hand through Anna’s fallen hair, lovingly, enviously.

It made Anna’s skin crawl.

“So pretty,” she murmured as her fingers tangled almost possessively through Anna’s tresses. “It is often wasted on the youth.”

Anna pulled away, stepping out of the Countess’ reach; that strange, amiable, too wide smile resting over the Countess’s face as though she knew she had made Anna uncomfortable and had meant to.

“You look like you have something to say, dear. Questions, perhaps?” Again, the Countess seemed to shift her features back into the guise of a kindly grandmother figure.

Anna, panicked as though the woman could read her thoughts, blurted out the safest topic she could think of in that moment.

“There’s a painting, a portrait…un—unfinished of you hanging in the back of the gallery. It…it appears to have been ruined by something—" She broke off quickly, realizing what she was asking. _How was that an ideal topic to bring up now?_

The Countess pursed her lips, for a moment looking confused. “Is that one in there? My apologies. It was not supposed to be.” Her facial expression shifted again as her voice went higher and a thin smile spread across her lips as though she were reliving a very fond memory. “It must look dreadfully morbid now. Quite shocking, I suppose, but the story is nothing so vulgar, I assure you.”

Anna breathed a sigh of relief, something about the Countess’s voice made her feel foolish for thinking the worst. For letting her imagination go wild. Almost like being gently chastised as if she were an errant child. She felt the heat of an embarrassed blush hit her cheeks. She was a professional art appraiser, but she sure wasn’t acting very much like one, getting wrapped up in childish fantasy.

“It does look rather macabre,” she admitted.

The Countess gave her a conspiratorial grin, as though they were sharing a joke. “I suppose I’ll have to admit that I was a bit of a spitfire in my youth, though it must be hard to picture me as such. Reckless and beautiful I was. I adored all manner of pleasure and vices, entertaining rather wild social engagements—not at all the way a proper young noble should behave. I suppose you could say I lived a rather spoiled life. You see, there has never been any right or wrong or rules for me. Only freedom. A luxury of class I extended as far as I could reach, and _oh,_ it was fun. Such fun for the longest time. The parties I used to have!”

Anna found herself smiling along with the Countess, trying to picture her as a young lady her own age, and wishing she had seen a portrait in the gallery to help with the image. She could imagine herself navigating opulent parties with laughing and music, impropriety slipping in quietly at the corners, making her blush harder. She wondered what a life of riches and little consequences must be like. It seemed such a farfetched, and out of touch life to anything Anna knew…much like the castle itself.

“It was a bit of a wild night, the final evening I was to pose for that portrait. He was eager to finish it that very night and then be on his way. And I, in my revelry, spilled my drink on it. Ruined the thing, so I had it framed as a joke afterwards for him.” The Countess laughed, that dry, cackling sound piercing the rafters. “I’m afraid he never thought it so funny as I did though, and he departed shortly after.”

_He?_ Anna grew excited. This was her mystery artist! The Countess was talking about her mystery artist!

“The artist—who was he? I’ve seen his work in the gallery! It’s incredible! Some of the best works I’ve ever seen!” she gushed, almost forgetting herself.

The Countess rolled her eyes, her good cheer fading, clearly miffed Anna was interested in the artist and paintings and not her. She waved her hand carelessly, that air of disdain drifting back in. “Oh, just an arrogant little nobody. I don’t even recall his name.” She scoffed, a bitterness settling in that belied a history Anna wasn’t going to get to hear. “Despite his ambitions, he was never going to go anywhere.”

Noticing the change in the Countess’s mood, Anna quickly switched topics. She realized that she was not going to get anything else from the Countess concerning her mystery artist, and it was in her best interest not to push. Had Kristoff been here, he would have been able to coax out the rest of the story and the name with ease, Anna was certain of it. However, Anna had erred by showing more interest in the artist than the Countess, a mistake Kristoff would not have made.

It was a shame, she desperately wanted to know more about the man, but perhaps Weselton would recognize the work and know more once she arrived back in Arendelle. It was not worth the risk to accidentally damage any good repertoire she had just built up with the Countess to inquire further, even if it was Anna’s job to do so. Not when she could put that to better use.

Anna smiled her brightest, doing her best to look charmed and grateful. “Thank you for the story behind the piece. I’ve always had a fondness for the stories behind art. In fact, it makes me eager to start my work today as soon as possible.”

“Ah, yes, your work.” The Countess nodded, making Anna think that perhaps the Countess had forgotten why Anna was really here.

“It’s later in the day than I had thought,” Anna continued, “and I’ll need as much light as possible to assess the paintings properly. I was wondering…if I’m to be in the gallery for a length of time, some fresh air would be nice. It’s a bit musty, and I…uh, I noticed the balcony doors are locked, and thought perhaps I could open them in the day, weather permitting, of course.”

“No,” the Countess answered, her expression pleasant and patient. “The things here are mine. They belong to me. I’ll not have thieves tempted.”

“Thieves?” Anna repeated in alarm. _Up here? Preying on an unwell, old woman?_ She immediately felt shamed. Of course, such a place would be a target. Isolated, sparse staff… No wonder the Countess had new locks put on, especially if word got out that Anna, an art appraiser, was arriving. The poor woman could be robbed blind or worse, and Anna instantly sympathized.

“Oh yes,” the Countess continued, her demeanor shifting to something almost like what Kristoff did when he was ready to tell a really good story. The way he would try and make it believable, however outlandish, and could succeed with just his serious posture and face alone. It instantly made Anna suspicious, her initial sympathy fading.

“Some would like to possess things that are spoken for, and want what they cannot have, such is their lowly station. It cannot be helped. The locks will remain as I will not part so easily with what is _mine._ ”

“Absolutely,” Anna agreed hastily, not quite willing to believe the Countess’s explanation. It was too much like Kristoff telling a story, and not quite the truth of the matter, though Anna felt it prudent to just agree with the woman and move on. “Forgive me, I was not aware that was a problem here.”

“I will escort you to the gallery, and come and fetch you personally when it is time for dinner,” the Countess decided aloud.

“Oh, no,” Anna waved her hands in objection, “that really isn’t necessary!”

“I will escort you and fetch you,” the Countess repeated coldly, making it clear her decision was not up for debate.

“Yes, of course,” Anna answered, very much cowed, and not wishing to incite the woman any further. She was more than ready to be away from her. The sooner she got to the gallery, the sooner she could be left alone with her work.

The Countess motioned for Anna to follow after her, and Anna did so. The silence almost as unbearable as the dark hallway leading to the gallery.

When they arrived at the gallery, the Countess surprised Anna by strolling right in, all the way to the back of the room. A far cry from yesterday’s behaviour. Anna had to hurry with her lamplight to keep up, until they reached the last painting on the wall. Seeing it still made her shiver, even knowing the story behind it. It still looked just as gruesome as it had last night.

Wordlessly, the Countess pulled the massive painting off of the wall with little effort.

Anna watched as a slew of little black beetles scurried out from under it, hurrying away to the dark recesses of the walls to find new shelter. Something niggling in the back of her mind all the while. _Why remove it from the gallery now?_ Anna already knew it was not meant to be part of the collection and would have left it alone…yet the Countess seemed determined to take the painting away from her sight. Why do that?

_Unless…_

Unwilling to let on that she thought anything was amiss, Anna did not follow after the Countess as she took the painting away. But she did watch it. She stared at the painting as it was being removed, analyzing silently and carefully as the Countess carried it across the room, past the balcony windows and briefly into the daylight. Even cloudy, Anna could see ‘the drink’ spilled in the natural light, and had her doubts.

Definitely not paint either, at least not any Anna could identify, though she was only thinking it because she was not quite willing to accept that what she was looking at was probably dried blood.

She had wanted to accept the Countess’ explanation for the painting, she had no reason to suspect the woman was lying about it, she had seemed quite sincere in her recount of the history, especially when Anna held it up against the Countess’ tale of thieves, but upon the removal of the painting, Anna was sure more than ever that she had been lied to about it.

But even that had been a blessing in disguise. It told her more about the Countess, and that the woman was dangerous. And that not everything here was quite as it seemed.

Anna was certain of that.

God, how she wanted to simply just pack up her bags and leave this awful place. She’d barely arrived here, but within two days was starting to catch a glimpse of the dark secrets this place and the Countess held.

Once alone, she scrubbed her face with frustrated hands, exhausted from trying to make sense of this place, of the Countess, and unwilling to really try and accept the things her eyes had seen and her mind was whispering.

She wanted no part of this.

She would simply keep her head down, do her job, and then leave.

As quickly as possible.

Forget this place and all its horrors.

She worked hard in the gallery, the only thing she could think of to keep her mind off of the castle and its strangeness. Off the Countess. There was comfort in the familiar, in the things Anna understood. And Anna understood paintings.

Thank God for that. Her job felt more like a distraction, a way to keep her sanity while here, and Anna often had to remind herself that the reason she was here in the first place was because it was her _job_.

She shouldn’t have to spend her evenings, late in the hour with the Countess, and yet, Anna knew that it was expected of her. She knew she had to make and keep a good impression. She wasn’t just representing herself; she was representing the Weselton Art Society.

She spent the afternoon talking aloud to the paintings while meticulously cataloguing each one once she’d separated the paintings the art society would want from the unsalvageable ones. It had been far more work than she had thought, mainly because she had to navigate through so many worthless pieces, but she kept up a stiff pace, intent on getting as much done as possible.

Thankfully, from what Anna had sorted, her work would be finished quicker than expected, the gallery not having all that much of value. Along with a copy of her notes, she wrote a letter for Weselton explaining the situation, and how she would be home much earlier.

She’d spent far longer in the gallery than she had planned on today, her fear of the Countess kept her in place, though by her watch, supper should already have been served. The hours the Countess kept were not only bizarre, but draining. If Anna was expected to work a full day _and_ keep the Countess entertained all evening, she feared she was never going to get a proper sleep until she returned home.

When the Countess arrived, she beckoned Anna from the doorway, eyeing the pile of good paintings Anna had sorted out with contempt. Anna packed up her work, tying the leather cord back around her folio, careful to keep her notebook and letters neat.

Dinner proceeded as it had the past two evenings with the Countess not actually dining with her, but simply sitting at the other end of the table, plastering her with more questions about herself and Arendelle while Anna ate. Only this time, the Countess inquired after Anna’s work notes that she was sending back to the art society in the morning. Anna reluctantly agreed to show the Countess her letters as they retired to the wingback chairs by the fire.

“No, no,” the Countess muttered as she read over the letter and copy of the notes Anna had made. “This won’t do at all. We cannot send such false, unpleasant words to Mr. Weselton.” And with that, the Countess threw all the pages into the fire. “Come, we will write it out better with my dictation.”

It was a highly irregular proposal that Anna was forced to oblige. The last thing she wanted was to set the Countess off again, and it was just easier to do what she was told. She still had her initial notes and would rewrite her copies to send anyway in the morning. She’d rewrite her letter to Weselton as well, and slip it into her packet of personal letters to Kristoff.

It was far too late into the night by the time Anna was released from her duties and excused to her bedchamber. She was in a foul mood by then, too tired and too hot with anger, and still needing to redo her copies.

The room was stifling and muggy, matching her temperament. And try as she might to ignore it, the essence of the Countess seemed to permeate through the air of the room, a stench Anna could not seem to rid her nostrils of to the point of a headache coming on. She put down her pen and stood up.

_A bit of cool night air_. _That would help._

She went to her window and pulled back the curtain, a sob escaping her throat. There on the latch, locked up tight, was a brand-new iron padlock.

But that was just the beginning.

Movement outside, across the courtyard, at the window parallel to her own caught her eye. There, in the dim moonlight, Anna could see her clearly at the window. The Countess. Only she did not move as the Countess Anna knew. This Countess crawled from out of the window, head and arms first, like a lizard, and skittered down the castle wall, quick and nimble, past the courtyard and down the mountain cliffside, out into the night. Moving in such a way no human body possibly could.

Anna rubbed her weary eyes, she pinched herself, and it hurt. What she had just witnessed had been real. _Real._ An unholy sight she would never forget.

The wolves struck up their haunting chorus. Unseen, but too loud to be all that far away.

Unable to breathe, Anna wrenched the curtains shut, her chest tight and heart beating madly enough that it threatened to burst through her ribs. She pressed her back against the wall. Panic setting in and consuming her. All the warnings, all the fear—the villagers had tried to warn her, but she had not _listened._ Had thought it nothing but silly superstition.

She stumbled to her carpet bag, ripping the bag open and frantically searching for it.

Her fingers felt the cool silver and sharp angles. She grabbed hold of it tightly. Her cross from Oaken.

_Please, young miss, please promise you will keep it around your neck, ja?_

Anna quickly clasped it around her neck as if her very life depended on it. For all she knew, it did.

It would be staying around her neck from now on.


	6. Act 1, Chapter 6: Anna

Anna’s Journal – February 19

_My hand trembles as I write this. I do not know what to make of all the things that have happened so far. I only know that something is very much amiss here, and I am beginning to fear for my safety. I am beginning to wonder—nay! —believe that I am being held here as a prisoner of sorts. I am not allowed outside at all. My work in the gallery is complete, yet the Countess dismisses this notion. She seems insistent on keeping me here. I do not know what to do._

_I have not seen proper daylight or smelled fresh air since I arrived here. Even the courtyard is forbidden to me, the main set of doors leading to the outside have been locked up tight. I know, I’ve checked. Daily now, since I discovered the padlock on my window, I’ve been going to check the state of the doors in my free time, when she is away. They are always locked. Everything in this God forsaken place is locked up tight, save for the gallery, the library and my quarters. I cannot be free of her wherever I roam. I feel her in the walls, in the flagstones, in the very air itself._

_I am trapped here, and I have no way of knowing if it is intentionally against me, or if she is simply paranoid, her tale of thieves a lie she truly believes. No one would dare the place, not with the wolves._

_Oh! The wolves! I’ve seen them, the great beasts prowling the courtyard at night. I see them from my window sometimes, moving as though they patrol the grounds. Vicious creatures, her creatures. No one could ever get close enough to the place to rob it, and I cannot help but fear that the Countess means to count me among one of her possessions. I am in this castle…and everything in it belongs to her._

_But that is not the truest terror, no, not by a long shot. It is the Countess herself. She is not quite right, and I do not mean to imply only in an unsound mind way, though I am certain that is a huge part of it._

_…I dare not trust my own eyes anymore._

_Am I going crazy? I do not seem to know. I have experienced so many unbelievable things that cannot possibly be real, and yet my senses all tell me they are. It’s these hours I’m forced to keep. This lack of sleep. I cannot tell what is real or what is fantasy, so much have I seen. All I can think to do is keep writing it all down. Try to make sense of it. Clear my head…get some rest._

_***_

It had started with the letters. Her letters to both Kristoff and Weselton. She’d found them, the partially burnt remains in the fireplace where she dined with the Countess. _No,_ where _she_ dined and the Countess simply sat and watched. Always claiming to have already supped. _When did she eat? What did she eat?_ Nothing set on the table ever seemed to tempt the Countess’ appetite. Not even the drink.

There should have been no reason Anna’s personal letters to Kristoff should not have been sent. No reason, really, any of her personal letters, even to Weselton, should not have been sent. She had been _told_ they had been sent, but the next morning, she’d caught sight of something in the fireplace while pouring her coffee. And sure enough, it was her letters. Her burnt, unsent letters. Tossed in a way that had fortunately landed them past the flames and near the back of the fireplace in the soot where they did not burn completely.

It was then and there that Anna started to suspect that she was in real, tangible danger. A personal threat against herself and her well being. Something believable had happened to alert her to take more caution, and to start thinking in the realm of her own safety. She’d caught the Countess in a disturbing lie and had proof of it.

So, Anna had started paying closer attention to the Countess’ schedule, her comings and goings. Her behaviours and habits. Constantly writing it all down in her journal. She kept the book on her at all times, just like her cross from Oaken.

In the Countess’ presence, Anna did as she was told, milled about the gallery even though her work was finished. Talked to the paintings, her only friendly company, all the while thinking of how she might escape if it came down to it. She’d broken all her hairpins on the iron locks in vain. The pins not sturdy enough to be of any use, but the only thing Anna had to try and spring the locks.

She had determined that the Countess was never around in the mornings. What she did was beyond Anna, but Anna witnessed her countless times crawling back into her window across the courtyard just before dawn. The morning business she claimed that kept her away almost all day, a lie. The Countess was definitely in the castle, only she seemed to restrict herself to her own wing. Sometimes, she was around in the afternoon and active, and Anna had learned it was best to be found in either the library or the gallery. She hated the woman showing up in her quarters the most, so Anna avoided being in her quarters until night to circumvent the intrusion.

She would watch from her window after supper for the Countess to leave, which she did nightly, returning after only a short while or sometimes not until dawn. Anna had taken up the habit of exploring the castle during this time, knowing for certain that the Countess was gone. She always went straight for the main doors, hoping against hope that they would be unlocked and she could leave.

It was never the case.

Bolted shut from the other side, Anna could not leave the way she came.

The castle was massive, and she’d yet to explore the entirety of it, but her exploration of the castle so far led her to believe that she truly was all alone with the Countess. In all her time here, she had not seen or heard anyone else. The floors and corridors she had explored were all aged in dust and cobwebs, unused and untouched. The castle more like a crypt than a home.

It was why she was tip toeing down the hall as quietly as she could from the gallery back to her quarters. If she was going to venture further into the castle, she needed to confirm it really was just her and the Countess. The last thing she needed was to come across some loyal servant while she was busy testing every door for locks. Getting caught being where she shouldn’t be.

As Anna neared the doors leading to her quarters, she could hear the clatter of dishes coming from the room. Slowing down and taking a deep breath to settle her racing pulse, she inched nearer to peek through the crack of the partially opened door.

The Countess.

The Countess was the one clearing the remnants of breakfast and setting out the dinnerware. Just as Anna had suspected. There was a bitter disappointment in confirming it. She really was all alone in the castle with the deranged woman. And while that meant she was safe from getting caught snooping, it also meant she was on her own with no one else to potentially help her.

She hated that her instincts had been right that first night here, the Countess _had_ been her driver, keeping the guise of a fully functioning household and estate for Anna’s benefit. Deception right from the start, but for what purpose? Anna had yet to discover that answer.

But she did know that the Countess was free to do whatever she pleased here. No witnesses. If something happened to Anna, no one would ever know the truth of it. She thought back to all the false pleasant letters she had been forced to write to Weselton. Would he know her well enough to suspect something wasn’t right?

A lump formed in the pit of her stomach. Probably not.

Backing away softly, not daring to even breathe for fear of being discovered, Anna made her way back down to the gallery. Once the Countess was done, she would be coming to the gallery to get her. That didn’t leave Anna much time to finish her task.

She knew what she was going to have to do. One way or another, she was going to have to escape the castle on her own.

Slipping back in through the gallery doors, she pulled out her journal and wrote down her findings while they were still fresh and true in her mind. If she didn’t record her findings as soon as she could, she might miss something important. A small detail slipping her mind could mean a grave mistake later on.

The swishing of fabric sweeping the hall floor alerted her to the Countess’ presence, and Anna quickly shoved her journal back into her skirt purse and stood up, pretending, like she always did, that she was studying a painting when the Countess arrived to fetch her for dinner.

Dinner played out as it always did, late into the evening to the point where Anna would feel dead on her feet with exhaustion. What she wouldn’t give for a proper, restful sleep. She wasn’t sure she remembered what that felt like anymore. But right now, her survival was all that mattered, and as if she needed anymore goading in that direction, the Countess made an unnerving announcement.

“We shall write our dear friend Weselton tonight three post-dated letters, the first two informing him of your extended stay at my castle, the last one, a letter dated the first of April, letting him know that you have left the castle and are returning home at your earliest convenience, and to expect your arrival within a few days. It is best we act in a proficient manner and to write these things ahead of time, so we remain organized, you see.”

Anna only nodded, trying to keep her hand from trembling as she wrote out the Countess’ diction, not wanting to have to copy it over, or let on that she knew this was not good news. Anna already knew what the Countess was doing with having her pen post-dated letters filled with more lies. Only this time, it was lies that would excuse the Countess of whatever she was going to do with Anna and cover her tracks.

_April first_.

Anna stared at the fine scroll of ink she had penned, the date chilling. A premonition of the worst outcome. She would not be leaving the castle on April first as the letter suggested.

At least not alive.

_Stay calm, Anna. Don’t betray anything. Don’t let her know that you know._

“It will be lovely to return back home in a few months.” Anna feigned a smile. “Spring in Arendelle is simply beautiful. Perhaps, a spring wedding for Kristoff and I. And I cannot wait to see the newest fashions in the windows of all the dress shops!”

“Ah, the whimsical desires of the young,” the Countess murmured almost absently. “They are the most wonderful things, but as fleeting as the Spring itself.”

Anna was released from her duties after the Countess read over the letters with a satisfied grunt and a menacing sort of gleam in her eyes. Holding the letters triumphantly as though Anna had just signed away her soul.

_You are not imagining that look on her face,_ Anna’s mind warned _. She means to see you dead._

It didn’t matter that it sounded crazy or paranoid, even to her. She knew it was the truth, and there was nobody here to convince her otherwise.

_And don’t you dare start chalking it all up to lack of sleep._

No. No, not this time. There were plenty of things Anna had tried to blame on her own mind playing tricks on her, but that was before. Before, when Anna was busy being docile and polite, manners putting her in more danger than she ever could have imagined. Making excuses and giving reason to things that had not deserved them. Sometimes the impossible was possible, and no amount of good manners or logic was going to change that.

Anna was now a creature of pure instinct, prey aware of a predator and acting to avoid certain death. She was determined to outwit the Countess.

Resolved now more than ever to act, Anna doused her lamps, and stood watching silently from her window, waiting for the Countess to leave. Every time she saw the woman do it, Anna would feel ill to her stomach. It had never become normal to her in its repetition. The sight of an old woman crawling along the walls in a lizard fashion was both grotesque and fascinating to Anna, but never something she would get used to.

Once the Countess was gone and out of sight, Anna moved. There was no more time to waste. She grabbed her carpet bag, and began to pack it with only the essentials she would need to survive a trek down the mountain, and some money once she made it to the nearest village. She could not afford to take more with her. The rest of her belongings would have to be abandoned to the castle.

_April first._

She had just over two months to find a way out of here.

She pulled out her journal and began to write, formulating a plan.


	7. Act 1, Chapter 7: Anna

Anna’s Journal – February 23

_I have been unable to continue my exploration of the castle these past few days. She is always here, and I have been sleeping later than I intend to. Sometimes sleeping when I do not mean to at all, and yet, I never feel rested. I am always in the fog of a waking nightmare._

_I am making sure I eat as much as I can. I need to build up energy from somewhere. Make up for the restless slumber. Need to stay healthy, need to be at my best. At least the coffee keeps me alert, hones my senses. Makes up for the fogginess this lack of proper sleep is causing. God, I am so very tired._

_I must always be vigilant and at the ready! Persistent. I am prepared to have to flee the castle at a moment’s notice, should the opportunity arise. I just have to keep looking. Keep searching. Wherever I can, whenever I can. She has to have missed something. She can’t have removed everything in this place that is both thin and sturdy enough to pick a lock. I know she has taken away any such items on purpose._

_Not that any of my found exists to this place are of any use. Even if I did get the balcony doors, or my window open, they both lead directly into the courtyard. I’d be torn apart by the wolves in no time, and this will have all been in vain. I need to find an exit that gets me past the courtyard, outside of the castle walls completely. I wonder if such an exit even exists. I wonder how far I could make it down the mountain before the wolves found me anyway..._

_I must not think like that! To do so is to give in to despair. There is still hope, and I must not lose that! Courage, Anna, courage._

_I think if I were able to get over to her end of the castle, I could follow her route along the castle wall and climb past the courtyard. But that puts me directly in her path and increases my chances of being found out. If that happens, it will surely be the death of me right then and there. This is also assuming I can make such a climb as a human. From what I can tell though, the wall does have various chinks and footholds. I will need to be careful, but I think I can do it if need be._

_I am hoping for a better escape route. One must exist in a place this big._

***

_Finally._

Anna breathed a sigh of relief and stepped away from the window. The Countess had left for the evening. It had taken everything she had to stay awake this long and keep watch. She’d even snuck an extra cup of coffee this morning and hid it in her dresser drawer, drinking it cold to perk herself up.

And it had paid off.

She was awake, and free to explore the castle. She checked Kristoff’s watch to note the time, and quickly tucked it back into her skirt purse. She had at least an hour, and at best, until sunrise before the Countess returned. She would never know ahead of time what her time frame would be, but such a variable could not stop her from what needed to be done. A risk, for sure, but one she had no choice in taking.

Out of habit, she started where she always did, the main doors. She knew it was futile, knew it was impossible to just walk out of here the way she had entered, but she still could not help herself from checking anyway. Escape always forefront in her mind. She sometimes wondered if that desperation made her reckless and foolhardy. If the main doors _were_ actually opened, would she rush through them without a second thought? Without analyzing all the risks? Consider at all the wolves?

And yet, try as she might to break from pattern, she was afraid that if she did, it would be the time something wasn’t locked. She continued in vain to test every door she had come across before. All locked. Always locked. But at least she knew for sure and wouldn’t have doubts.

_Don’t panic. Just keep going, be methodical, check everywhere._

When she had finished the areas that were familiar to her and sure that they were all locked and useless, she gave a small growl of frustration. She had hoped… _well, there’s nothing for it_. She turned away from what she knew was the front of the castle and looked to the opposite direction. Further _in_ to the castle. She had never gone that way before, the idea of venturing further in always worrisome. What if she became lost? What if she could not get back to her quarters in time?

_What if that’s where you find your way out?_

Endless blackness stood before her, the echo of her footsteps the only sound haunting the still halls.

“Come on, Anna,” she told herself sternly, needing to break the silence. “It’s not like you’ve ever been afraid of the dark. Just pay attention to where you are going, write it all down so you can get back.”

It was easy enough advice to follow, and hearing the words spoken out loud gave them power, gave her courage. She knew that waiting to be rescued was not an option. She was on her own. She could not trick herself into thinking otherwise simply because she was scared. The only one who could get her out of here was her. She had no time to be apprehensive and give in to fear.

She began the process of checking every door she came across as she worked her way to the other end of the castle’s main floor. Ignoring the new staircase she’d found, and focusing on the floor she was on first. She needed to be thorough.

_Locked, locked, locked._

Everything locked. When she reached the opposite wall and found the last door locked, she was beginning to feel discouraged. And desperate. She put her lantern down, and took out her journal, scribbling a crude map of what she’d covered so far. She checked her pocket watch. _Still time._

Anna decided to walk the area open to her on the main floor one last time before back tracking back to the stairs she’d found that led in the opposite direction of her own staircase—further still into the castle. She had not anticipated scouring multiple floors tonight, but the staircase was there and she had the time. No sense in not getting as far as she could tonight. At the very least, her map would be bigger, and she’d familiarize herself with new area. All things that could help her in the long run.

_On to the next floor then._

She hurried up the staircase, dismayed to find that here too, everything was locked up tight. Still she continued on. Each time, quickly pausing to update her map. She explored various staircases, both up and down, shadowed passages—always aware of the time slowly ticking away. When at last she ran out of doors, and happened upon a single last one at the top of a short, narrow staircase with questionable boards. They sank slightly under her weight, creaking with age and rot. She prayed to God they did not give way until she’d reached the small landing.

Once on the landing, she stopped to get her bearings, pulling out her map and deciding that she was now to the far right of the castle, her own quarters a level up and on the other side of the massive estate. The farthest she’d ever gone exploring the place.

As she approached the final, heavy wood door, her heart began to thump madly in her chest. _Maybe, just maybe…surely, this far out of the way and out of reach_ —she grasped the doorknob and turned, a silent prayer on her lips.

The knob would not budge.

_No._

She let out a defeated sob, banging her fist on the door before falling against the thick wood with the whole of her body, despair sinking in…and to her astonishment, the door moved. Shifted slightly against her weight.

Anna shoved the door harder, really pressing her shoulder into it, and it scraped miserably against the floor. She stepped back and studied the door. It was indeed still locked, but had fallen off its hinges. Upon closer inspection, the iron bolts holding the hinges together were gone altogether. Probably rusted away with age and decay. This whole wing of the castle much more decrepit than elsewhere she’d seen. No one would even notice such a thing as missing bolts unless they had pushed against the door like she had.

With her full weight and much force, she could probably push the door open enough to squeeze through the entrance. Without a moment to lose, she grunted against the door, pushing with all her might until sweat was beading on her brow, the door slowly giving way to her efforts. Muted light spilled though the narrow opening, and Anna shoved the door harder. The room had windows!

When she had got the door open as far as she could, she sucked in her stomach and moved sideways, keeping her lamp arm in the lead as she squeezed herself into the narrow opening, first her arm, then a leg. It was a tight fit, and she had wriggle and push, but she would make it through. Her clothes snagged on the frame as she shimmied herself, trying to get her weight steady on the foot she’d gotten through to the other side. Only once she found herself stuck, but the door gave a little as she moved, helping her work her body through.

She was almost out to the other side and sped up her pace, eager to get into the new area when the silver chain of her cross somehow got caught on the door hinge in her haste. It pulled taut for only a second and before Anna could react, the delicate silver chain snapped.

“No, no, no!” Anna cried as the cross fell from her throat to the floor and her unable to catch it. In a panic, she shoved herself through the rest of the doorway, scraping her abdomen and banging up her leg, but making it to the other side. She quickly dropped to her knees in search of her cross.

She found the broken chain tangled on the floor, but alas, the cross itself was gone. Holding up her lantern she caught the glint of silver deep within a crack in the floor. She’d never be able to get it out.

“Damn it!” she cursed, pocketing the broken chain, and hardly able to believe that in a few short seconds, she had lost her cross. Still, she had made it past the door and found new area to explore. Area that had been deemed off limits to her. She’d just increased her chances of escaping.

Outside light was the first thing she noticed. Waning moonlight reflecting off the snow, but with so many windows covering the back wall of the room, she hardly needed her lamp at all to see. Her heart ached at the sight. How she had longed for natural light from the outside world in such quantities. This room far more generous in windows than Anna’s quarters or the gallery combined, and with a view that did not face the courtyard, and subsequently, the Countess’s room.

_A parlour room?_

No, as Anna ventured forth into the space, the room was clearly masculine. She could almost feel the presence of a young gentleman still here, the room so well preserved in a memory of a time long ago. It was evidently a set of rooms where a man would pass the time in bygone days. A gentleman’s smoking room or odd room at one time, perhaps. She suspected the adjoining doors would lead to a sitting room and bedchamber.

A layer of dust covered the room’s surfaces and Anna absently ran her finger along the top of a small writing desk, making her way to the windows. The view too open and vast, she suddenly didn’t want to look out of them and be reminded of her impregnable prison, but a whole level lower than her own might offer her better climbing options.

But these windows did not open. Purely decorative, and as Anna peered out at the landscape, she knew why. Nothing but perilous cliffside and rockface. She sighed, if not a route out of the castle, then perhaps there was something else in here that could help her. She should take her time and look.

It was strange, but she found herself wanting to linger here. This room felt distinctly different from anywhere else Anna had been in the castle. Even time itself seemed to slow down to an indolent sort of crawl.

It lacked the Countess’ presence, she realized. The stain of that awful woman did not seem to permeate through the air here. Anna could hardly bear the company of that woman any longer. For weeks now, she’d been unable to free herself of the Countess, feeling her everywhere she went.

But here, for the first time in what felt like forever, Anna did not feel stalked. Hounded. She felt, oddly enough, safe—such a startling idea in this God forsaken place. It’d been so long since she’d felt any sort of security or comfort that it felt foreign to her. Unrecognizable, somehow.

Here was a place she could sit easily; her heartbeat could slow. She could take a moment and just breathe. The air calm, peaceful. This place a room where she could gather her thoughts and write her accounts at leisure and accurately. Out from under the Countess’ ever watching eye.

It was an excellent idea.

She made her way back to the small writing desk and placed her lantern down on the surface before sitting down at the desk. She took out her journal, opening it to a fresh page, before it occurred to her to check the desk drawers for anything of use. Strange that she had not thought of doing that immediately. 

Warped with age, she had to use some force, but the single drawer pulled open revealing a leather bound book and something rolling around in the back of the drawer hidden behind it. She reached her hand into the drawer and yelped, pain shooting through the pad of her index finger. She withdrew her hand quickly, having pricked her finger on something sharp. Instinct drawing her finger to her mouth to nurse the small wound. The metallic taste of blood had her fishing out her handkerchief, a small drop of blood already beading the tip of her finger the moment she went to wrap it.

“Damn it all,’ she muttered to herself, grabbing her lantern and trying to peer into the back of the drawer. Something sparkled when the light hit it, and she made another attempt to retrieve the object, this time reaching for the dull end. A jewelled stick pin. Set with a brilliant, square cut pink tourmaline, it was a stunning piece. Much longer and thicker than any of her hairpins had been. Anna quickly tucked the pin into her skirt purse, unable to believe her good luck in finding such a boon.

The leather bound book was in hideous shape, bits of the spine already crumbling away with age when Anna picked it up. Curiosity took over. She carefully laid it flat on the desk and gently opened it, finding it was someone’s journal, though the pages started to disintegrate to dust at her touch and the ink was faded beyond deciphering. She closed the book, reopening it from the back, finding the last few entries were a bit more legible and began to read.

_‘…Another serving girl was found dead today. The poor thing, she was the one who used to smile at me when she brought me my afternoon cake and coffee. She’d fallen down the stairs like the last one, though I really do not believe that to be her cause of death. It’s absurd to believe that in three weeks, two women who used those stairs daily should be clumsy enough to fall to their deaths. I think they died before that and the stairs were staged. No one is saying it, but this one too had those small, strange puncture wounds on her neck…’_

Anna squinted, trying to make out the rest, but to no avail. She skimmed on, looking for something else legible, finding only odd bits and pieces.

_‘I thought I heard a baby crying last night, but that is impossible. There are no children here…it’s these hours I’m forced to keep. I just want to be finished my work and leave._

_…it’s strange…and maybe it’s simply the lack of sleep, but the Countess looks different…younger? Her eyes are still just as cold and just as cruel though. There is nary a thing about her to tempt me, not even her deep pockets anymore, but I must continue to play the gentleman and act her companion even though I do not like the way she looks at me. Those too wide grins and dead eyes are bone chilling.’_

“Tell me about it,” Anna murmured, comforted to know that someone else had felt the same.

_‘…Her portrait is almost complete. I’ll finish it tonight despite her strange night-time parties. It has to be tonight. I cannot bear to stay here any longer. For months, I’ve been telling myself to just keep my head down, do my job and then leave, but I cannot keep ignoring the plain truth before my eyes. Countess Elsa is a monster, and I wholly believe she means to continue to keep me here as long as she can._

_Once I finish the painting though, she’ll have no choice but to pay me my gold and send me on my way, our contract at an end. It’ll be enough to buy my own place, and there are always other patrons…I can forget this place and all its horrors.”_

Anna stared at the page, rereading the last paragraph. _No…it couldn’t be…_

The author was also her artist.

She immediately looked up from the book to take in the rest of her surroundings. An easel on the far side of the room caught her attention. She left the desk and book behind to investigate.

The canvas was bare, giving away no insights to its owner. But the side table beside it filled with long abandoned artist’s supplies would. There was only one artist whose work she’d found in the gallery that mixed their own pigment, and here laid before her, were the supplies to do it.

_This was where he stayed._

She dipped her fingers into the marble mortar, rubbing the finely ground clay that remained inside it between her fingertips. It was an odd choice for pigment, as common as any dirt. Surely there were better clays, but then he’d also had the skill to work with almost anything. And who knew what was available in these mountains.

_He was resourceful,_ she decided, the appraiser in her briefly taking over. _He had to have made it out of here._

Of all the rooms she could discover, she felt it was good luck that she had found his. Her mystery artist. His work had helped her keep her sanity these past few weeks. His portrait the one she conversed with the most. It felt like fate being in this room where he once was. And now she’d read his journal and had found a kindred spirit. Someone else had gone through what she had, and she no longer felt all alone.

Anna left the art supplies and went back to the desk to write out her findings. She opened her own journal and began to write. Writing until her mind began to dull and her hand began to cramp. It was so peaceful here, so warm. She tucked her journal away, finished. Stifling a yawn, drowsiness swept in and covered her like a thick wool blanket.

_Funny,_ she thought to herself sleepily, _the moonlight hasn’t even shifted._

She’d hardly been in here very long at all, and yet she was so exhausted. She yawned again, wider this time, and stretched her arms up over her head, trying to keep her heavy-lidded eyes open. Perhaps a short nap. Just a small one. There was a chaise right over there, the cushions still plump. She didn’t even care about the layer of dust, or the cobwebs. What was some dust when there was peaceful rest here?

The Countess’ absurd warning about sleeping echoed in her mind. It had been frightening at the time, such an unnerving thing to say, but now it felt silly.

Why should Anna not fall asleep in any other rooms in the castle but her own? It was only a room, no different than her own, except for how lovely this one felt. How cozy and warm she felt here as though she was back in Kristoff’s arms, safe and sound. No bad dreams to be found here.

She did not want to return to the gloom filled rooms of her own, the rooms steeped in the Countess and her never-ending nightmare hold over Anna. She wanted to stay here and rest just a little while longer in her quiet sanctuary from the Countess.

She went to the chaise and sat hesitantly on the surface, a sigh escaping her lips when yes, yes it was just as plush, just as comfy as it looked. She could certainly curl up here in the back corner of this room and sleep…just for a few minutes.

Anna could also not deny the pleasure she felt in disobeying the Countess. Deliberately going against what she had been explicitly warned not to do. It was but a small sip of rebellion to wet her parched lips and taste freedom from this cage she’d been caught in. She rubbed her eyes, yawning again, and laid down, sinking comfortably across the length of the chaise as her eyes flickered shut, sweet slumber beginning to overtake her.

She was not alone.

She knew this before she had even opened her eyes. Adrenaline quick in her veins. She felt it. A presence. It was almost the way she felt when the Countess was near, but also different. Somehow, very _different._ She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Anna risked a peek, barely opening her eyes and looking through her lashes so as not to alert the intruder that she was aware of their presence.

She must be dreaming. She had to be caught in that funny place between dreams and consciousness, that twilight place of fantasy, because there was man standing there in the moonlight. A man, but the room had remained untouched by his presence. No dust disturbed, not a single footprint.

_Dreaming_ , her brain assessed, for he threw no shadow. _Simply a dream._

There was nobody in this vast castle but her and the Countess. This truth calmed her mind. Lulled her into a state of passivity that was not a normal reaction for her, especially to lie so familiarly in the company of an unacquainted male.

Unacquainted, yes, but recognizable. Her body thrummed in both excitement and approval. She already knew him by sight. He was the man from the exquisite painting. Her favourite painting. 

He stood before her, watching her quietly, more stunning in real life than he was depicted in paint. Clothed as a gentleman in private, he was far too intimately dressed for her to see him as such, and Anna felt a great rush of heat flush across her cheeks. A scandalized thrill coursed through her body, flooding her with an unnatural desire. The apex between her thighs growing slick with liquid heat.

_Dear God_ , her face burned at her body’s reaction to him. Hardly appropriate. She was spoken for! Try as she might to conjure up images of Kristoff, she could not seem to draw up his likeness in her mind. Instead her thoughts were filled only with _him._

She couldn’t help but open her eyes fully and look at him. Admire his handsomeness, bask in his beauty, his mere presence commanding her full attention. Rich auburn hair, the moonlight casting a coppery sheen over his silky tresses; his strong, lithe physique cut to perfection. Trim waistline, broad shoulders—she ached at the sight of him. The most alluring green eyes, like cut peridots, shining at her with coy interest. With promises of illicit acts the likes of which she could hardly stand to imagine. Carnal pleasures no upstanding woman should seek to find. Her heartbeat quickened as the wickedest thoughts crossed her mind.

At the same time, his beauty made her uneasy. He was almost too pretty, too tempting, making her think something about him wasn’t quite right, dangerous even. Like a carefully placed mask hiding a wolf underneath. It was, however, quite difficult to keep hold of that idea. Her brain feeling hazy and muffled. Likely the dream erasing all rational thought, as dreams were wont to do.

His head cocked inquisitively to the side, still watching her silently, keeping her eye. Wolfish. She thought back to the night of the wolves and how they had terrified her upon arriving at the castle. How the Countess had kept them at bay as though she held sway over such vicious creatures and they bent to her command.

Her blood ran cold, a chill going through her body, mingling with the heat of unspoken passion, making every last one of her nerve endings tingle. She was alert. _Alive._ She stared back at him, locked in his gaze. Trying to find that strand of thought that spoke of danger, and unable to recall it.

His tongue flashed a seductive pink across his lips in a lick that had Anna drawing in a breath. God, how she wanted that tongue on her, and in places she’d never dared allow Kristoff to go.

_Forgive me, Kristoff,_ she pleaded silently, but she was going to kiss this man. His perfect lips were made for such pleasures. Soft, supple—a mouth crafted for bliss.

He grinned as if reading her thoughts, his teeth pearly white and canines elongated and sharp, like the Countess’ teeth, but rather than shirking away, Anna drew towards him. Wanting that mouth on her, teeth and all. Her nipples went instantly stiff at the thought. Pleasure as they rubbed against the starched fabric of her corset with each breath she drew, her body and mind aroused beyond reason under his gaze.

No amount of guilt or propriety was going to be able to stop her. She’d never known temptation until this man, and, God forgive her, but she was not going to resist his advances. Even if she had wanted to, she wasn’t sure she had the strength. The willpower to refuse such a request.

Knowing this truth terrified her, because he was as the Countess was, and yet she _wanted_ him. She was repulsed by his otherworldliness, and yet, equally aroused by it. Enthralled by him. This man was a creature of nightmares and dreams, and he held Anna somewhere in between. Calling to her in a way that sang to her soul, and she yearned for him, and him alone. The forethought of his touch almost too much to bear.

He stepped slowly towards her, so smoothly that it was as though he were gliding across the air and not the floor, and Anna couldn’t deny that it must be so, because the dust remained undisturbed. He held her gaze, compelling beyond all sanity. A dance with danger she should refuse, but could not resist.

When he reached the chaise, Anna lay in wait, fraught now with the agony of anticipation, for a kiss she desired above all else, a single touch of their skin waiting to happen. He did not stand towering above her for long, the way the Countess liked to, imposing her command, asserting her authority over Anna and making her quake. Instead, he dropped to a crouch, kneeling beside her. Gentle and attentive, like she had swooned and he was the utmost gentleman seeing to her health and comfort.

But those eyes. There was something there in his eyes that belied such a notion.

She could hear her own heartbeat thumping loudly, a steady pulse beat as her blood quickened in her veins. Hot and alive, calling to him. Such a strange notion…

“At last, the lady comes of her own accord,” he said in a voice that was melodic and sharp like finely cut crystal. “It is now my right to begin.”

He leaned in towards her and she nearly threw herself into his arms, needing his touch more than anything in the whole wide world. She could feel his heated breath on her bare neck, the sensation of warm air on her skin making her gasp. His lip quirked up, amused. Those sharp, white teeth gleaming. He did not kiss her as Anna had expected, had wanted. She almost sounded all her pent-up frustrations aloud when he pulled away from her throat.

“My, aren’t we a neglected, pretty thing,” he said softly, his hand grazing her thigh.

Such a bold move, done in such an innocent manner, his fingers hardly touching her at all.

_And wrong._

That thought jarred her.

_Where had that idea come from?_

So wholly wrong, but undeniably pleasant. She struggled again with her thoughts, trying to remember why this was bad, and came up empty handed.

Compulsion filled her suddenly, those green eyes practically glowing, and she was reminded of what it was she really wanted. What it was she _truly_ desired _._ She lifted her hips off the chaise in an attempt to get more of him, the lull of the dream making her just as bold, helping her remember the lines to a play in which she was acting in.

A husky laugh rumbled from his throat, all smoky and sex, the sound shooting straight to her loins, making her blood sing for him in the highest notes.

“So touch starved,” he mused softly, more to himself than to her as she squirmed impatiently for him.

He swept his feather light fingers up her thigh, so swift over her hips and groin, the pleasure so fleeting that she did cry out. Cut off too quickly from a feeling she could hardly describe, but wanted nonetheless. He seemed to delight in this, toying with her, watching her wriggle for his attentions until finally he’d had enough of teasing.

With a great force that didn’t quite fit his pleasant gentleman’s face, he shoved her skirts up, bunching them around her waist. The shock of such aggression should have been frightening, but instead it thrilled her, and she aided him, encouraged him, lifting her hips as high as she could so that he could remove her drawers with ease.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she had cried out in offense, in outrage. _This is indecent! Are you mad? What are you doing?_

But such thoughts were quickly silenced by the tearing of fabric and his bare hands on her bare thighs, gripping her tender flesh to the point of pleasurable pain. The heat of his touch searing her, blinding her to anything but him. His desire. Hers. So carnal, so demanding—she’d give him everything. He need only take it from her.

He kissed her then, wild and hard, a ferocity of passion Anna had never known existed in the world. This was no chaste courtship kiss. No hesitancy, no manners. He claimed her mouth as though it had always belonged to him. She moaned, shuddering in his embrace. He tasted of wine, the sweetest the summer vine had to offer…but on his tongue a bitter warning, once again calling to her that something here was amiss.

The thought snapped off, shattering in an instant and replaced with untold pleasure coursing through her body. He’d touched her. His hand down there, caressing her womanhood, his fingers seeking out her heat, her wetness, fondling her with the most intimate of touches.

And she writhed for it, rocking her mound into his clever palm, craving him. Allowing his fingers to rub her slick folds, to enter her, not one, but two, allowing him to touch her in a place no one else ever had.

She groaned in bliss against his lips, quivered and panted for him, cried out for him as his lips travelled downwards, tracing the pulse line of her neck, nipping at her sensitive throat. His kisses far more urgent, far more violent, the farther down he went, and _Oh God_ how she wanted him! Wanted him to lose all restraint with her.

He yanked her top down, her breasts spilling out from her bodice, impossibly free of her blouse and corset, exposed in the chill night air and ripe for the plucking. His mouth suckled each steepled bud until she was moaning for more. Begging him. The occasional graze of his teeth on her sensitive flesh nearly undoing her.

His fingers at her cunt were relentless in their pursuit as her pleasure began to build, mounting with each practiced stroke, each kiss, each nip of his teeth, and further down he went still, his head finally stopping to meet his hands between her thighs.

She was lost then, now and forever, as his kiss met her most intimate parts. She thrashed beneath him, bucking, a creature of his night, wanton and feral, seeking his passion and crying out for her release, pleading with him to make her feel whole. He’d built her pleasure up so high, the sweetest torment as he kept her tethered to the edge of a passion so foreign and unknown to her, and just out of her reach. His touch convincing her that she needed him more than anything else she could fathom.

_Him. Only him._

He nuzzled her innermost thighs with his face, rubbing along her skin like an animal. Licking and lapping, nipping, kissing her hard. His fingers pumping in and out of her in delicious fashion, sliding with such ease as his thumb pressed against her swollen clit. Playing with her, teasing her, keeping her right on the edge of pure madness and bliss. Euphoria a mere touch away should he give it.

And he would.

She could feel it in him, in his kiss upon her thigh. The increasing urgency in his touch, his control slipping, the press of his mouth against her, the growl in his throat, the distinct indent of his teeth upon her flesh, the sudden, sharp prick of pain—

She was near wild for him in that moment, half crazed for his touch, responding to him in the way only the most ardent of lovers would. She could scarcely recognize herself in his arms, only wanting, only lusting. Only needing him. The moment of carnal release finally at hand as his thumb circled her wet pearl faster, his fingers deeper inside her with urgent thrusting, his mouth locked on her thigh in a kiss that would surely leave her bruised, his moans matching her own—and she could feel it rising, the pleasure arriving swift and hard— _Oh God!_ She was going to—

In a flash she felt _something else_. Awful and cruel, a presence she knew and recognized and _loathed_. Instantly it robbed her of her moment of sheer, unadulterated ecstasy as she was cut off from him. She screamed in tormented outrage. Her shriek piercing the rafters. It was like having her soul wrenched from her body and doused in ice water.

The Countess had arrived and she was livid.

She ripped him off of Anna with an unholy strength, and he hissed at her like an indignant beast, more animal than man. Caught by the neck in the Countess’ grip, she threw him across the room in a fit of rage the likes of which Anna had never seen from the woman before.

“How dare you touch her?” the Countess seethed, her voice like a growing storm as she advanced towards him. “How dare you cast eyes on her when I had forbidden it?”

He bared his teeth at the Countess, snarling like a wolf in reply, but stayed where he was. 

“Back, I tell you,” the Countess commanded, her displeasure clear as she placed herself directly between Anna and the man. “You know this woman belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with her, or you’ll have to deal with _me._ ”

Anna was stricken to silence and fear by such a voice, but the man, half sitting up from the floor, merely wiped the back of his hand across lips and laughed, a hollow, mirthless sound that filled the room.

“You yourself never love; you never love!” he taunted back as though he took both pleasure and pride in his disobedience.

The Countess sighed, her voice falsely gentle, “Yes, I too can love. You know it from the past. Is it not so?”

The look he gave her was scathing.

“Fine,” she snapped bitterly in contempt. “I promise you that when I am done with her, you shall kiss her at your will. Now go! Go! Before she comes out of it.”

“Am I to have nothing tonight then?” he asked as he rose up from the floor.

At this, the Countess nodded to a bag she had evidently brought, a small sack wriggling on the floor.

Anna shrank back in horror. The sound of an infant’s muffled wail filling her ears. With ungodly speed, the man pounced on the sack the way a cat would a mouse—and Anna quickly looked away, averting her eyes and catching sight of her exposed upper thigh, smeared red in blood—her blood— _Oh God! He—_

The wailing came to an abrupt end.

She felt herself begin to fall, and everything faded to black.


	8. Act 1 - Chapter 8: Anna

Anna awoke with a start, and a scream left unspent in her throat. She looked around wildly, confused at first, finding herself tangled up in the sheets of her own bed, in her own quarters, wearing her nightgown. She was not in the room she had found of the artist’s or lying on his chaise. Not at all where she last remembered being. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow.

_What an awful dream._

_God,_ it had all seemed so vivid, so real. The worst nightmare she’d had in this place yet. She must have fallen asleep before ever leaving her quarters.

_And still…_

She couldn’t take anything for granted here. While the whole nightmare of last night seemed impossible and farfetched, she couldn’t discount it as just her imagination. She already knew this place was horribly and inexplicably wrong, the Countess along with it. She’d been doubting her senses ever since, but deep down, her instincts just _knew._

_Or, I really am going mad._

Anna kicked the blankets from her legs and pulled up the hem of her nightdress, bunching it around her waist, her hand trembling as she recalled the more shameful bits of the dream, before the horror took over the narrative and made it gruesome. _He bit me. He’d meant to eat me alive, drink his fill and leave me for dead…and I was all the willing to let him do just that._

_If_ it had been real, there would be his mark on her. Even now, her inner thighs seemed to burn with the memory of his touch, and a rush of heat pooled in her belly, unwelcome, but still the soft tingle of arousal nonetheless.

The way he’d latched onto her flesh, sucking and lapping—there would be visible bruising for sure. That was the type of kiss that lingered on one’s skin. Violent passion in the heat of a moment that could not be mistaken as anything else but a desperate hunger. She wasn’t so innocent that she’d never dealt with a love bite before.

It was true that Kristoff had only ever left one behind once—when their courtship was new, but once was enough to remember the sweet, dull pain that danced on her skin for days after, or the frazzled, yet exciting, attempts to hide her neck from her servants when she dressed…how Kristoff agonized over it afterwards. Guilty and apologetic for getting carried away, but always that flash of desire hidden in the dark brown of his eyes. She smiled at the memory. Dear, wonderful Kristoff. How she missed him. It seemed like her life with him had been an eternity ago. A fond and distant memory from an Anna she hardly recognized anymore.

The shock of an empty, unblemished inner thigh where the man had been should have been a relief to her. Instead, she frowned. She was so used to insurmountable fear in her waking hours, always there like an undercurrent, that she’d honestly expected her skin to be marred. She had been prepared to see the worst.

It had been a dream. Nothing but a bad dream.

_Jesus, Anna, you really are in a bad way._

She stared at the creamy white flesh of her thighs, twisting and squinting to get a better look, trying to find any bite mark or bruising. A strange sort of desperation bubbling up within her to find physical proof. Proof that she was not crazy. Proof that the dream hadn’t been just a dream. That it had been real, and that niggling little voice in the back of her head was telling her the truth, however impossible it was to accept.

After much searching, she found the tiniest two little pinpricks of pink on her skin. Hardly the cause of a very toothy man with a ravenous kiss, and more like a slight skin irritant caused by anything, really. Her bedsheets, for all she knew. She pulled her nightgown back down.

There had been no man last night. 

She climbed out of bed, still a bit shaky from what she could recall of the nightmare. The more she thought about it in the daylight, the more impossible it seemed. How could she really have thought _that_ had been real? Of course, she hadn’t _really_ met her mystery artist. That would be absurd. He’d have to be as old as the Countess by now, or more likely, dead. Not the handsome young man her own age that her brain had conjured up from the portrait of the man she was admittedly taken with in the gallery.

She felt heat rise to her cheeks just thinking about the start of the dream. She’d really been away from home— _from Kristoff_ —for far too long to start dreaming about things like _that,_ and in such sordid detail. As always, it was the stress of this place manifesting. Her mind shifting from the very real danger she was in and turning it into something else. Still, even a dream, it was important to write it all down. Keep a record of her thoughts, even her subconscious ones. Her journal was her tether to her sanity.

She hesitated to write the dream down in full, though she had written about all her others in detail, worried that this one would upset Kristoff if he were to read it. Such an absurd thought.

Kristoff wouldn’t be upset over an erotic dream. He was too sensible for that. He’d probably waggle his eyebrows and tease her a little, and nothing more. Her hesitation came more from her own discomfort regarding it. It had been such an arousing dream, something her subconscious mind had conjured up that had shamed her waking thoughts. She was a proper, respectable young woman, not some wanton harlot unable to control her own passions, and it bothered her remembering how _she_ had behaved in the dream more than anything. How she had behaved with a lover who wasn’t Kristoff, fabricated or not.

_No wonder it transformed into such a nightmare._

She scrubbed her hands over her face, letting them rake back into her hair, brushing the tangled, damp, mess of strands out of the way as she went to her wash basin. A sense of normal returning with her daily morning routine—or at least as normal as Anna’s life had become living in the castle. She paused, correcting herself. _Imprisoned_ in the castle.

Yes, she was going to have to try again tonight to escape. Strange dream or not, Anna still had to get out of the castle. Last night did not change the fact that she was still very much in grave danger. She hated that she had been so careless and had missed a potential opportunity. She must have really been in bad shape to sleep without even remembering it. There was no point in being angry with herself over it, though.

_You’re doing your best,_ she reminded. _And under very difficult circumstances. You haven’t lost your mind yet._

As determined as she was to leave this place, she also knew now that she was no good exhausted and unable to function from lack of sleep. At this rate, even if she could escape the castle, she’d end up dying in the wilderness. She needed to keep her head.

_Have to be careful about that. Keep your wits about you._

_Keep your wits and you keep your life._

She got dressed and made her way to her dining room, breakfast laid out for her like it always was, even though the sky told her it was already midday. She was surprised to see the Countess there waiting for her, and immediately worried that she had been caught doing something wrong…like snooping the castle. Like trying to leave. Anna slowed her steps.

“Ah, there is my pretty, young friend!” the Countess clucked, her spirits and manner high, no hint of malice that Anna could see behind that too wide smile. “You silly young things and your beauty sleep. _Oh,_ to be youthful and vain again.”

Anna only smiled weakly, the bare minimum of courtesy as she sat down at the table. The Countess was beside her in a near flash, startling Anna by pouring coffee into her cup. Her speed something Anna was never going to get used to. The sickening, acrid smell of the Countess’s breath wafted into Anna’s nostrils as she spoke, and Anna swallowed down a gag. She was never going to get used to the invasion of her personal space either.

“I trust you slept well?”

“Y-yes,” Anna stammered, the cup shaking slightly in her hand.

“No bad dreams?”

Anna put the cup down with a clatter, bitter dark coffee sloshed over the side of the delicate porcelain and stained the pristine white table cloth. The dark liquid spreading out and ruining the fabric, reaching further and further where it had no business being. Where it had been accidently dumped. An unfortunate coincidence. Anna stared at it, mesmerized.

_Staining her hospitality with your sin. It should have been Weselton here instead of you._

“No,” Anna lied. “No bad dreams.” Her eyes never left the dark spot of coffee on the cloth as she willed herself to remain calm. The Countess had no way of knowing what she had dreamed. She couldn’t be in Anna’s head, privy to all her private thoughts and memories. _Then why ask today of all days?_ “Only pleasant ones.”

The Countess clapped her hands sharply in delight, making Anna jump at the sound. “Good, good, excellent, yes.”

Anna tore her attention from the tablecloth to the Countess, the woman sounded far too pleased, and Anna looked at her, really looked at her for the first time since entering the room, and felt the faint and familiar tremor of fear. The one that had never really gone away and whispered in her brain constantly to pay attention and trust her eyes and instincts, however bizarre it seemed.

The Countess looked…different. Anna puzzled over this. Somehow, the Countess looked distinctly different than she had all of the other times Anna had remembered seeing her. She’d come to recognize her host in great detail, seeing as she was the only person Anna ever saw. She knew every craggy wrinkle, every liver spot, every wiry chin hair, even how far her hairline receded back onto her skull. Anna knew the look of the Countess as well as she knew herself.

_How well do I know myself, though?_

If Anna saw her reflection after being without it for so long, would she still recognize her own face? The thought made her bristle. Of course, she would. One didn’t just forget what they looked like. She would always know herself, just as she knew something about the Countess was wrong.

_Stop chasing your tail in circles and focus,_ the harsher part of her mind snapped.

Today something was off. And the longer Anna looked, the more she could see it. The Countess looked smoother, less haggard, less _old._ Still old, yes, but no longer ancient and hag-like. No longer the pure embodiment of primeval crone from Kristoff’s folktales. Today, the Countess wore her regal white robes instead of them wearing her. Plump flesh filling in where there had only been grizzled bone and papery skin. Even her posture was less stooped. A trick of the light perhaps?

_No._

Something nagged at Anna, urging her not to dismiss this as a mere trick. It niggled and wriggled in her brain like a worm in the dirt searching for the surface when it rained. There was something eerily familiar about this, and she took a moment to think. Where had she seen this before?

The answer rang sharp in her mind, like a warning bell.

_‘…it’s strange…and maybe it’s simply the lack of sleep, but the Countess looks different…younger?’_

She recognized this from the pages of the man’s journal in her dream.

How had her dream-self known? Anna needed time to think. Time to ponder, and it was always a challenge doing that in the Countess’s presence.

“I ought to get to work,” Anna said, though she no longer had any work to do. Hadn’t had work to do in weeks. Both she and Countess knew there was nothing in the gallery for Anna to do but use it as an excuse to hide away from the Countess.

“Yes, of course.” The Countess smiled that all too wide smile again. Even her lips looked plumper than before, no longer dried and cracked. Thin. The red lipstick that always looked so garish almost looked at home now on such a face. “Come along, Anna.”

And Anna obeyed.

As much as she had come to loathe being escorted to and from the gallery by the Countess, Anna was compelled to follow. To play along and act the obedient girl, a prisoner in a castle high among the frigid North mountains. Kept by a jealous old witch because she was young and pretty and kind. Everything the witch could not be.

An ill-timed giggle gurgled from her lips. She sounded just like one of the damsels in Kristoff’s stories. Only this one had no happy ending with a strikingly handsome prince coming to save her with a kiss—he was more likely to kill her here with one instead. There was no beautiful blonde knight with eyes the colour of warm chocolate to break through the locked main gates and whisk her away on his noble steed.

No, this was likely a folktale with a tragic end. A cautionary tale for foolish girls who didn’t keep their wits about them.

_Keep your wits, and you keep your life. Do not be led astray into the dark. It is cunning and clever, so you must always be on your guard. If it wants you badly enough, it will have you._

Anna did not intend to be had, and if this was her story, then she would choose what sort of tale it was going to be. If she were meant to die sooner than later, it was not going to be here in this castle.

They reached the gallery, and the Countess clicked her tongue. The incessant, insect-like _click-click-clicking_ bore its way into Anna’s skull like it always did, making her want to scream at the old bat to shut up. She was starting to think the woman did it on purpose to aggravate her.

_She wants you uncomfortable and off kilter. That’s what she does, Anna. She wants you to get distracted and miss something._

But Anna noticed straight away. The daylight streaming in midway across the gallery made the sole change stark and blatant to her trained eye. Anna nearly cried out. Tears already welling and making her vision blur.

A landscape painting.

A landscape painting where her painting of the man had been.

“Where is he?” she demanded, the words tumbling past her lips before she could think better of it. Her legs already rushing her to the spot where he used to hang.

“Who, dear?”

And Anna wanted to scream at that benevolent, innocent tone. Wanted to turn on the woman and claw at her face until it bled. She knew exactly what Anna was talking about. She had to. Just like she had taken the blood splattered painting, she had taken Anna’s painting of the man. Only she had taken it away while Anna had not been present.

Her blood boiled at the offense. At the implication that she was stupid enough to fall for the act. “The painting of the handsome, red-haired man. The portrait. The one that was hanging right here!”

Anna was expecting to be told that it was being packed up for Arendelle as they were speaking. Too much of a coincidence that after _that_ dream, his painting would vanish. That after the Countess had inquired about her rest the very morning after _that_ dream, his painting would vanish.

She waited for some lie about servants and shipments. The works ready to be sent to the gallery, the lie a believable one to the untrained eye. To an eye that wouldn’t notice that none of the other paintings marked for shipment had been taken as well. They were all intended for Arendelle, but for weeks they remained in the gallery with Anna, untouched and unsent. Anna wasn’t even sure the Countess ever had any intention of parting with them at all. Perhaps it had all been some elaborate trap to lure her here in the first place.

The Countess looked baffled. “I’ve never owned such a painting. Not a single red head in the family.”

Anna snapped. Her painting was gone and with it, felt like a piece of her soul. Like her journal, that painting had been a comfort. He was her only friend in this godforsaken place and now he was gone. She couldn’t seem to control her hysteria or her anger. “He was right here! He’s always been hanging right here!”

The Countess did not appear affected by Anna’s outburst in any way. “The gallery is large, and you have not quite been yourself. Sleeping too late, working too hard, I worry for you, my friend. Perhaps you are confused over the portraits and mean another.” The Countess wore an expression of sympathy and concern that looked so genuine that just for a moment, a single, tiny moment, Anna believed it as the truth.

Maybe she had been mistaken.

_It’s this place. This horrible impossible place._

“Yes,” she found herself saying slowly, though for the life of her she couldn’t understand why she was agreeing. “You are right. My apologies for my outburst. How very unbecoming of me.”

“There’s a good girl.” The Countess gently folded her hands together, like some saintly sister of the cloth. “Do take more breaks, my dear young friend. The mountains are not like Arendelle and those unaccustomed…well…” She turned towards the exit, her elegant white robes sashaying across the dusty floor giving an air of dignity and grace that Anna had never seen before. “I will come and get you for an early dinner. I fear the hours I keep are beginning to take a toll on you.”

“Thank you,” Anna replied, hardly recognizing her own voice. “That would be lovely and much appreciated. You are ever the most gracious of hosts.”

She stood amiably in place until the Countess was gone. Then it was as if a fog had lifted in her brain, her gaze sharpened and she went to work. Straight to the wall where the man’s painting had been. Let the Countess believe she fell for the lie. She scoffed, _no such painting hung here, huh? We’ll see about that._

Anna had not spent the bulk of her life in a gallery surrounded by paintings and displays changed out, _not_ to know that all works left behind traces of where they had been. Especially when they had hung in a spot forever. There would be evidence on the wall itself.

She brought her lantern up to the wall surrounding the landscape painting. It was one of his works. Though different. She paused. Strange…that this was one that had never been in the gallery before. A brand new painting. The likely ruse would have been to put up a familiar piece. So why a new one?

It was a painting of the forest, almost the way Anna had seen the fringes of it on the way up the mountain in the sledge. Only this was deep within the woods. The heart of the forest. Grim and dark, _dangerous_. Even the trees looked wicked and foreboding. Hungry. Looking at it made her uneasy. It crept under her skin, a prickling sensation that felt as though she were covered in tiny crawling insects. Like those little black beetles that scattered along the gallery wall once before. She rubbed her arms trying to make the feeling go away.

It didn’t.

The painting was a far cry from his other works, which had seemed to carry a sense of romantic beauty to the mountain range. His work had always invoked a wistful desire to the viewer. An ache to see the places he painted in real life. He could tame the wild with his brush and make her long for it.

_Why would he paint something so cruel?_

Anna studied the piece. It was in her nature to do so with any new work she came across, trying to uncover its mysteries. And as uncomfortable as the piece made her, she could not seem to stop looking at it.

She realized that this landscape was also different in another way, not just in mood. He’d painted a figure in this one. She’d yet to see any other landscapes where he had. At first glance, the figure was unnoticeable, nearly blended in to the harsh tangle of the forest’s fauna.

A tiny, cloaked figure—distinctly feminine with dainty curves and a softness given with the brush. A tenderness in his hand that didn’t match the rest of the strokes. It was a woman’s back, fleeing further into the dark, unforgiving forest; the cape billowing out behind her, and the detail was immaculate, the colour exactly as she had seen it before. He’d even paid attention to the rosemaling—

_Wait…what?_

Anna gasped, taking a step backwards from the painting.

“That’s me,” she whispered, though there was no possible way it could be, and yet, it was _her_ cloak she was staring at captured in the paint. She’d done the rosemaling on it herself the fall she’d bought the plain garment.

She immediately felt ill. How could that be her, and at the same time, how could it simply be a coincidence? Nothing made sense. And as Anna’s eyes took in the painting at a distance, she noticed something else.

The painting had always been there.

There was no faded outline on the wall of where the dimensions of the man’s portrait should have been. No darker pattern of the wall paper untouched by time, safe behind the painting from exposure. No worn wallpaper or gathered dust edges of the frame’s memory to trace her finger along. Nothing. Nothing at all that said such a piece had ever hung on this wall. No physical evidence it had ever existed.

“That’s not right,” she muttered to herself. She had seen the painting of the man with her own eyes right from day one. She had mistaken him as a real person, for God’s sake. He was the prize of the whole collection. She had loved that painting above all else in the gallery.

She immediately went to work removing the landscape painting from the wall to see the bare space beneath it and prove, somehow, that the man had always hung here.

_‘I’ve never owned such a painting.’_

“ _Yes,_ you did!” Anna seethed, tearing the landscape painting from its hook and placing it on the floor, baring the wall.

And the wall did have the saturated square of wallpaper behind the painting. Untouched by time, protected by the painting that had covered it. Only the dimensions were that of the landscape painting. Physical proof that this particular painting had _always_ been here.

“No!” She ran her hands over the wall, desperate to feel even the hole where the old hook had been. _Nothing._ “You were real!”

Panic welled up in her throat as she went to her work satchel, pulling out her book where she had recorded all her initial impressions of the gallery, knowing she had written extensively about the portrait of the man. Knowing she had made copies that had even been sent to Weselton from this book. She leafed through the pages, distraught when even her book had no record of the painting.

All the words she had remembered writing gone.

At first, she thought that the Countess had gotten to her book and ripped the pages concerning the portrait out, but that was not the case. There was no evidence that anything had been torn from the book, no matter how carefully. It was fully intact; except everything Anna had remembered doing was not there.

Anna reached into her skirt purse for her journal, giving a small cry of anguish when the words on the page existed there. Proof of the painting in her private journal. Pages dedicated to him. _Pages._ Proof within her personal thoughts…

…and _nowhere else._

It was not a comforting or reassuring discovery.

There was no way of telling whether she had made up the portrait of the man or not. All the physical evidence she’d found confirmed the Countess’s words, and contradicted Anna’s own memory. Her own eyes.

Such a painting had never existed.

Anna slumped to the floor and buried her head in her hands, and began to sob.

***

She had never felt so resigned to her bitter fate than she did sitting across from the Countess while the woman watched her eat. Never touching a single morsel, or sip herself.

It had taken everything Anna had in her to pull herself up from the gallery floor and sleepwalk her way to the dining room when the Countess had arrived for her, who knew how much later? What was time in this place, anyway? And why did it even matter anymore?

Everything was different, and nothing was at all what Anna had believed it to be. How could she trust her own senses when they were false? When she was clearly going crazy? Vividly hallucinating events that had never happened. She was sick in the head, and it was a terrifying discovery. And as she poked at her meal, she began to wonder just when it had all started to deteriorate. Was it the isolation? Was it the thin mountain air?

She’d heard of such things, people going mad, their minds broken and confused—hadn’t Ryder Nattura gone into the study of psychiatry, instead of surgery? She seemed to recall Kristoff telling her that with much disappointment, as Ryder had been a particularly gifted medical student.

Funny, that it was a rather frowned upon practice when it seemed like a very crucial one to her. A pseudoscience. A joke career. A place where _has beens_ went to practice. Not up and coming, promising doctors. No one really believed that true madness could be cured, only contained. It wasn’t like mending a broken bone or healing the flu.

And _why_ was she even thinking of such things anyway? What was it to her if Ryder Nattura had quit medical school and abandoned becoming a surgeon to instead study madness? It wasn’t like she would ever be going home. Or be one of his patients.

It was the hope.

The small hope in her heart that she could be fixed, she supposed. That there was someone out there in the world who could possibly help her. Heal her.

_Because who are you, if you don’t have hope, Anna?_

She raised her wine glass to her lips ruefully. _Let’s drink to that then. To hope._

The sip of wine on her tongue was just as bitter as her mood. Just as dry. Just as—

She swallowed before thinking better of it. Before the warning had fully formed.

There was something off about the wine. She peered down at her glass slowly, swirling the liquid around in the cup. Dark red, thick, it slipped and slid along the insides of her glass, seeming to melt slowly back down the walls to pool back together into her drink…the aftertaste in her mouth coppery, the texture like a buttery film—

She looked up towards the end of the table where the Countess sat. “What is this?” she asked just before the Countess was suddenly there at her side, slapping the glass from her hand with such violence that the force sent the cup flying through the air and shattering against the foot of the hearth. The red of the wine splattered across the dining table and floor, reminding Anna of a great, open wound. Like a slash from a knife. Like the splatter on a portrait.

“Begone!” the Countess bellowed at Anna, a fiery rage burning bright in Countess’s eyes, making them appear to glow as Anna shrank back into her chair in absolute terror and paralyzed in place.

“I—I—” Anna stuttered. Somehow, she’d enraged the Countess and the woman looked ready to draw blood.

“Off with you and your childish pranks! Now, go! I grow weary of your impudence, little one. You have gone far enough where you do not belong, and try my patience in doing so. _Do not_ test me any further.”

The warning in the tone and the harshness of the words were certainly not lost on Anna, and if she only knew what she had done, then she could avoid it in the future, but before she could form any sort of semblance of words to rectify the situation, laughter broke out behind her.

A mirthless, and yet, beautiful sound, like finely cut crystal, sharp and lovely, something Anna had only ever heard in a dream. Her pulse quickened. A dream that had slipped into a nightmare…

She turned to see where the sound came from, unable to help herself, the excitement she felt knowing his voice, seeing him again—but there was no man there. Nothing behind her but air. No body to match the sound to.

Until there was.

The shadows thrown by the hearth fire rippled and broke apart, until one part was still the lines and angles of the furniture and room, and the other…

Anna rubbed her eyes in disbelief. _Surely not._ Surely, she was mad, because there he was. Her dream lover. The man. Or rather, his shadow with no man there to throw such a shape as the one she was staring right at on the wall. She shook her head softly, feeling dizzy, her lips parted in confusion and wonder.

A man made entirely of shadows.

_You’re not real._

But her eyes said otherwise as the shadow figure moved— _walked_ along the wall towards the hearth, before leaping up onto the fireplace mantle in a way no human could possibly move. Animal like, Anna decided, his gait slow and loping, the way a predator moved when not on the hunt. He lingered when he was directly across from her as though she was the most beguiling thing in the room and had caught his attention. Somehow, she just knew that even with the Countess right there, it was her he was looking at. It made her heart thump madly in her chest. The urge to leave her seat and follow after him almost an all-consuming thought in that moment.

Perhaps she might enjoy his teeth sinking into her flesh. She certainly had in her dream.

The Countess made a strange sort of hissing sound, like a low warning, and he moved again. Though there was a playful arrogance to his step when he strolled past the Countess. Her eyes were hard, following him with a stare that could curdle milk. The scene much the way Anna had often seen displeased parents look at their mischievous children. He seemed to delight in this, and laughed again as he finally reached the doorway and disappeared into the shadows of the black corridor, his beautiful yet hollow laugh still ringing in Anna’s ears.

_He’s real._

He had to be. The Countess could see him too.

“Oh my, you clumsy, clumsy girl!” the Countess chided, her voice suddenly right in Anna’s ear. Anna blinked, tearing her gaze from the dark corridor and brought her attention to the Countess, who was busy dabbing a napkin over the tablecloth. Anna’s wine glass lay sideways on the table in front her. Intact. A small pool of wine being blotted up by the Countess.

“Wait… _what?_ ” Anna queried, peering around the room in a daze. The room looked exactly as it had moments before the Countess had slapped the glass from her hand. Completely untouched by the events of the thrown wine and its shattered glass.

_That’s not right…_

“You fell asleep, you silly goose!” the Countess laughed, a soft motherly inflection to her voice. “And with a glass in your hand, no less.”

“I…I did?”

“Poor thing, you must be exhausted so, to simply nod off right at dinner.”

Anna felt her face grow hot. “Oh my gosh! I am so sorry,” she apologized quickly, completely mortified. “Here, let me, I should be the one cleaning that!”

The Countess only chuckled. “It’s fine, you on the other hand, are not. I worry about your health, my pretty, young friend. You’ll make yourself ill keeping on this way. Go get some sleep, dear. There is no offense on my part. After all, you are my lovely guest.”

Anna nodded in agreement, a heavy wave of exhaustion sweeping over her. _Yes,_ she thought sleepily. _The Countess is right._


End file.
